


Blue Rock

by laniew1



Category: Panic At The Disco, Young Veins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-16
Updated: 2009-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journal is titled Ryan & Brent’s Wild Adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Then:**

  
Brent takes Ryan for a walk when Jon Walker brings Brendon back to the van drunk and barely able to keep his feet under him.

Ryan probably would have chosen Spencer to wander the outskirts of the bus area with, but Spencer had lost three rounds of rock-paper-scissors so Brent got to not deal with Brendon.

They’re just walking, Ryan has found a stick somewhere and is sort of waving it the ground in front of him.

He automatically reaches out a hand when Ryan stumbles.

“New feet?” he grins and Ryan just looks at the ground.

“There’s something…” he kneels so Brent does as well. There’s a blue rock, it looks dirty, like it’s been there a while, but you can still see the blue under the dirty.

They reach out to touch it at the same time, when Ryan pulls his hand away his fingers are streaked with a blue dust.

“This better not be some kind of sex pollen egg rock thing,” Brent laughs. “Because I like you…”

“But not like that,” Ryan grins at him, one of the few that he’s managed in the last couple of days since Brendon has discovered alcohol.

“And does that even happen in real life?” Ryan adds as he carefully picks the rock egg thing up, Brent stands and wipes his own fingers on his jeans.

It has to be getting close to a laundry day, he thinks, if they go to much longer his jeans are going to be able to walk without him in them and he’s pretty sure _that’s_ not supposed to happen in real life either.

They walk back to the bus, Ryan holding the rock egg thing with both hands.

“You know if that’s really an egg whatever’s inside is most likely dead, right?”

“I think it’s pretty,” Ryan says. “If it starts smelling I’ll just blame it on Brendon’s socks until it doesn’t.”

Brent laughs and they walk.

When they get back to the van Brendon is passed out in the backseat and Spencer looks like he’d like nothing better then to kill each and every one of them.

Brent forgets all about the rock egg thing.

  


******************************************************************************

 **Now:**

Ryan is pretty sure he’s going insane.

It’s not _normal_ to look at Brendon and hear ‘I hate every word, every word, why can’t you write something that I _want_ to sing’, or look at Spencer and hear ‘autopay, come on its not a new concept’ and ‘you’re an adult I should at least be able to trust that I’ll be able to leave you alone for three days and not find you with no power or food’.

The alcohol dulls the voices so that he can’t hear them, but that doesn’t last for very long and eventually the voices are back and Brendon’s is even louder, even angrier, as is Spencer’s. And there’s other voices chiming in as well, making their presence known.

Keltie’s voice is disappointed in him, ‘what’s he waiting for? There should be a ring, we already have Hobo, I don’t want to start a family without one, maybe that’s the push that he needs’.

He calls a friend, someone vague and enough distance away that he can’t ‘hear’ them and asks them for a favor.

It takes three weeks for Keltie to pick up his sidekick and he waits for her to see through it, but instead she takes it at face value and they’re done.

He comes out looking like the bad guy, like a hypocrite, but he can’t…

He’s going crazy and he can’t take Keltie with him, can’t have kids that he might make crazy just by virtue of their being his.

He avoids the net for a couple of days, hoping the worst of it will pass by, but it pops up again and again and the voices just get louder and louder.

He spends a day with Pete and instead of silence which had been all he heard from Pete before, now all he hears is ‘maybe William was right, maybe they weren’t ready, maybe they are just a one hit wonder’.

He’s desperate enough to try something else, he can’t keep losing people, he can’t.

He smokes with Jon and that works for a couple of weeks, then he resorts to harder, more questionable stuff.

Jon won’t help him with that so he has to go to others, those others take pictures.

He meets with Spencer because he needs a friend, needs someone that can see through him, needs someone that tell him that he’s not going crazy.

“I think I need a break,” he says and Spencer’s laugh sounds relieved. Ryan can’t ‘hear’ him, he doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.

“I was kind of thinking the same thing,” Spencer says. He takes a sip of his water and looks at Ryan with a serious expression on his face.

“Brendon and I have been working on some stuff,” he says, Ryan doesn’t fidget, doesn’t blink or move.

Maybe that’s why he can’t ‘hear’ Spencer anymore; maybe he can’t hear Spencer because Spencer’s already given up on him.

He makes noises about him and Jon working on some stuff, and they have been, but nothing that they really planned on doing anything with. It was just stuff they were doing to play around, killing time.

He drives around in circles and hours later he goes home and Jon is waiting, Spencer must have already talked to him because he looks at Ryan with a raised eyebrow.

“You can work with them,” Ryan says, he doesn’t want him to leave; Jon is all he has left now.

Jon shakes his head, and his voice is clear in Ryan’s head, ‘what the hell? Can’t leave him alone though, god what a mess, what a mess’.

It takes a few weeks before Jon is silent in his head, Ryan’s stopped drinking, stopped smoking up with him. He eats when they put food in front of him, but everyone is so loud that half the time he gets distracted. All he sees is Jon’s quiet watchful eyes, all he sees is Alex hovering. All he ‘hears’ is their worry and fear.

“I think we need to take a few days off,” Ryan says when they’re finally silent in his head.

If he was right, if Spencer’s silence was an indication that Spencer had given up, then he knows that Jon’s silence means the same thing.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Brent shows up on his doorstep two days after Jon leaves. Ryan thinks he’s staying with Spencer, he’s not sure.

When he opens the door Brent is standing there and he looks bad, Ryan knows if he were to look in a mirror that he probably looks exactly like that.

“I think I’m going insane,” Brent says.

“Maybe we can share a room in the hospital then,” Ryan says. And opens the door wider so Brent can walk in.

  


******************************************************************************

  
They’re four shows in. He and Brendon are starting to gel on stage and they only have a 30 minute set which is good.

Because any longer then that and Brendon starts looking for Jon and Ryan and Spencer starts to realize that he can see the audience because Ryan’s body isn’t blocking his view.

“This isn’t permanent,” Brendon says fiercely one night. “This isn’t.”

The fans are receptive to their music which is nice, they don’t cover any of their old songs because the thought of performing something of theirs without Ryan and Jon there feels like it would be signing the death warrant of them as a group.

They cover other songs though, anything that Brendon feels like doing.

It’s fun.

They spend a lot of time on Pete’s bus, Ashlee has Bronx with her because she’s still filming, Pete has brought Hemmy with him.

Pete is the one that finds the pictures, someone Twitters at him about them and he’s got the journal they were originally posted to up on the screen when Brendon and Spencer show up.

“What’s going on with Ross?” he asks and Spencer shares a look with Brendon, because that’s a loaded question if he ever heard one.

He hasn’t talked to Ryan directly in a couple of weeks, he talked to Jon over the weekend though and he sounded relaxed, they’d apparently been taking a couple days off.

He wonders if Ryan got his picture taken actually _doing_ the drugs this time instead of one _insinuating_ that he was doing them.

“Why?” Spencer asks, Brendon goes over to where Pete has his laptop open. Spencer follows and he thinks that the same expression of confusion that is on Brendon’s face is probably on his.

“Is that Brent?”

  


******************************************************************************

  
There’s three pictures total, taken by a fan with a camera with a zoom at a rest stop. They show Ryan sitting cross-legged on a picnic table, Brent sitting next to him. Ryan’s holding something cupped between his hands and they’re both grinning.

They both look happy. It certainly doesn’t look like the same Ryan that Spencer’d had lunch with that looked about a week shy of losing his shit all over the place.

The post heading is:

 **Wilson and RyRo made up? When did this happen?**

Followed by the pictures, the pictures aren’t posted behind a cut tag so everyone can see them. They were evidently taken at a rest stop in Kansas.

It’s had over 5 pages of replies by the time Pete shows it to them.

“I’ve seen them,” Jon says when Spencer calls him. “I’ve got no idea. Ryan’s not home, his sidekick is on his kitchen table and there’s no note.”

“Jon…”

“He’s in Kansas, or was, the pictures were taken two days ago.”

“You asked?”

“I created a journal specifically to do so,” Jon says.

“Why the fuck would he be with Brent?” Brendon asks. It’s a sensible question; Spencer hadn’t even known that Ryan and Brent were talking.

He wonders what else he doesn’t know, what else Ryan has kept from him, from them.

  


******************************************************************************

  



	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 

Ryan knows they’re being photographed. He doesn’t even know how he got recognized, he thinks he looks about as far from normal as he could get on such short notice, he’s got on baggy jeans that he’s pretty sure are not his and a t-shirt that he’s almost positive was one of Jon’s, when it gets cold he pulls on a jean jacket that he’d found in the back of his closet when he was packing his duffel bag.

They’re not really going anywhere specific, at least he doesn’t think so anyway, maybe the egg rock thing will tell them differently eventually.

The fact that their destination is dependent on what they’re assuming are the whims of a rock means that Ryan was right and he’s going nuts.

But so is Brent, so at least he’s not going making the trip by himself.

They drive during the day, taking turns behind the wheel, making left turns and right turns based solely on the pleased humming in their heads. He might be going crazy but Ryan’s just pretty glad that he’s not the only one that can hear it.

They stop at night in cheap roadside motels and watch bad late night television. That first night, standing at opposite sides of the double beds they determine that they’ll take turns keeping the egg at night, he has to draw a line somewhere and sharing a bed with Brent after they’ve not spoken for years is where he’s putting his foot down.

The decision doesn’t make it through the night, they both toss and turn and he’s pretty sure that the pouting in his head is the egg. Which of course doesn’t make him any less crazy.

Brent ends up climbing out of his bed and sleeping on the very edge of Ryan’s. They get rooms with one big bed now and he’s pretty sure that’ll end up on a journal somewhere eventually.

It’s the most fun he’s had; the most comfortable he’s been with Brent since everything went to shit all those years ago.

He wonders sometimes how long Brent had been hearing voices, why he heard them so much sooner then Ryan evidently did. But then maybe his own voice in his head had drowned out all others, at least until they couldn’t be drowned out any longer.

“How many pictures of us do you think are up now?” Brent asks. The fans taking pictures are in no way discreet, they’re kind of obvious actually and Ryan’s actually waved at a couple of them. He doesn’t think they’re getting pictures taken at every rest stop they stop at (Brent has a bladder the size of a pea evidently) but its pretty close. Sometimes he thinks they’re being followed but its always different cars, different people. Maybe they’ve set up some elaborate phone tree or something to let others know in what direction they’re heading that day.

He would think that people have better things to do with their time, but he would evidently be wrong there.

Brent finds it amusing as hell, he’s been out of the public eye for too long or he’d probably feel it was invasive, like Ryan does.

He doesn’t need documented proof on his trip to insanity.

Brent is in the passenger seat, because it’s Ryan’s turn to drive. They’ve got another 2 hours before they’ll start looking for a motel to stop at.

Brent has the egg in his lap, Ryan checks to make sure it’s still there. That it’s okay.

He’d bought a basket, used one of his old scarves as bedding, but it lays unused in the backseat, they both feel more comfortable actually holding onto the egg.

When Brent had shown up that was the first thing Brent had made him do, find the egg rock thing that Brent thought might be the cause of their slow slide into madness.

It had looked more like a rock instead of the egg that Ryan remembers finding with him, there was hardly any blue left in it at all and it had been cold and heavy in his hands when he took it out of the box in the back of his closet.

He’s not even sure why he still had it, why he could never bring himself to get rid of it. Every time he’d looked at it he was reminded of finding it with Brent, but he couldn’t ever just throw it out, something always stopped him. But he also couldn’t handle the reminders so he buried it until he couldn’t be reminded of that anymore.

The item lying in Brent’s lap looks more like the egg Ryan remembers, except less dirty, the blue is even brighter and whenever its Ryan’s turn in the passenger seat it is warm against his fingertips.

It feels alive.

Ryan can’t explain it, but then both him and Brent are going crazy so maybe this is just another sign.

“We’ve been on the road for a week, if there’s not a journal dedicated to detailing our complete nonsensical journey in pictures I’d be shocked,” Ryan thinks that some of their fans would put actual convicted stalkers to shame.

Of course this is him and most of his fans are completely disappointed in him at the moment, they might not even care.

He doesn’t say that out loud, because it’ll make it true.

“I’m surprised you haven’t got a half dozen calls from everyone, do you even have your phone on?” Brent muses. Ryan wrinkles his nose, clenches his hands around the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.

“I, uh, kind of left my phone on my kitchen table,” Ryan says quietly, the words a rush of air blowing past his lips.

Brent just looks at him and leans forward, for some reason he keeps his cell in the glove compartment.

Ryan doesn’t ask.

He thumbs it on and sighs.

“Well what was I going to say…” Ryan starts. “We think that the blue egg rock thing that we found a million years ago is slowly driving Brent and I insane, sorry?”

“You could have at least mentioned that you were going to be out of radio contact, they’re going to think I kidnapped you,” Brent mutters.

“Not likely,” Ryan states. “I haven’t even talked to Spencer or Brendon in a couple of weeks, and Jon knew that I needed to take some time off… they probably haven’t even noticed.”

“If there are pictures on the net, they’ve noticed,” Brent says. They don’t know for sure that there are pictures, Brent has brought his laptop with him but they’ve neither one been inclined to boot it up and find out.

“And the like six thousand missed calls from Brendon and Spencer and Pete would probably beg to differ as well; also, how the hell does _Jon Walker_ even have the number to my phone?”

“If Brendon and Spencer have it, then they probably told Jon.”

Brent huffs; he drops his phone in the center console and scoops the egg up in one hand, shifting until he can reach into the back seat. He keeps his laptop there. Ryan has a feeling that next motel will have to have a wireless connection before Brent will allow them to check in, and that Brent will be hovering over it once they’re settled in their room.

“You should probably call them once we check in,” Brent says. He puts the laptop bag down by his feet and settles the egg again.

“Why?” Brendon and Spencer are on tour; Jon has probably flown out to be with them. Everyone is exactly where they should be.

They’ve already cut their ties and Ryan doesn’t want them to watch him go crazy.

“So you can tell them that I haven’t murdered you and left your body on the sound of the road.”

Ryan frowns.

“I’m pretty sure that they’re not worried about that.”

******************************************************************************

It’s like the egg knows it running out of time (if Ryan calls Spencer they’ll end up going their separate ways, Ryan knows this because he knows that Spencer hasn’t been able to speak Brent’s name without a sneer since they kicked him out and there’s no way that Spencer is going to let Ryan keep traveling with him even if Spencer doesn’t want him traveling with _him_ either) because forty-five minutes shy of when they would start looking for a motel for the night, the egg starts shaking in Brent’s lap and Ryan slams on the brakes.

The car behind them swerves and honks, Ryan can hear yelling as it pulls past them, he slowly eases the car over to the shoulder and puts it into park.

They both stare at the egg with wide eyes, Brent has one hand braced against the dashboard and the other is hovering over the egg. Ryan reaches out a hand and even though he doesn’t actually touch it the egg shakes just that much more.

“We need to,” Brent says vaguely.

“Yeah,” Ryan says. He carefully puts the car into drive, places both hands on the steering wheel, checks the mirror and pulls out.

He drives calmly, obeying every posted speed limit sign and he doesn’t once look at the egg that is jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean in Brent’s hands now.

Brent is murmuring softly to it, like it’s a baby and it can hear its parents voices.

He’s not saying anything, just nonsense syllables interspersed with ‘just a bit longer’.

Ryan really thought they were going crazy and it was just a rock that cleaned up really nice.

Ryan pulls off into a rest stop and parks as far as he can away from other people and other cars, puts the car into park. Turns it off, pockets the keys.

It’s just getting to be dusk, they’re completely screwed if he’s recognized or if there’s enough light for people to see the egg dancing around in Brent’s hands.

He pulls his hat down further onto his head and gets out, goes around and opens Brent’s door.

He has his hands full; it’s the only sensible, right thing to do.

They walk a distance away, heading toward the tree line and when Ryan can’t see the car or the rest area or hear anything but his and Brent’s breathing he stops.

Flops down on the ground, legs crossed, Brent mimics him and places the egg on the ground between them.

They watch for a few minutes. Waiting.

Ryan jerks when he sees the first crack appear in the egg, Brent’s shaking and there’s another crack, and another.

Ryan links his fingers together and waits, shakes his head when Brent’s hand reaches out to help the egg peel apart.

Obviously he’s going to be the stern parent and Brent’s going to be the pushover.

He wonders what kind of bird it’s going to be.

The first bit of shell comes off and a little foot pops out, pushing and pushing against the remainder until finally a head appears.

He hears Brent’s indrawn breath of shock, as the rest of the egg falls away, can feel his own jaw dropping open.

“Is that a…” Brent says breathlessly.

Ryan doesn’t know how he knows, he knows it’s not a bird though, not a lizard, not anything that he’s seen in any book of _real_ creatures, not anything that anybody and their brother can see in a zoo or in the wild or _ever_.

This is something straight out of a fantasy book and…

“It’s a dragon.”

******************************************************************************

Spencer keeps trying Brent’s cell phone even though Brent is apparently ignoring it. There’s a possibility that Brent doesn’t have a cell phone, but Spencer refuses to believe that. _Bronx_ would have a cell phone but Ashlee refuses to let Pete buy him one until he can dial the numbers by himself and isn’t inclined to chew on it.

The only phone that Jon found in Ryan’s house was Ryan’s, placed directly in the center of Ryan’s kitchen table. Jon had taken a picture of it and sent it to him, so that Spencer could see that Ryan not having his phone was probably less ‘forgot it’ and more ‘didn’t want you to be able to call me and tell me I’m being an idiot’.

“Someone’s created a journal for everyone to post their Ryan and Brent roadtrip pictures to,” Pete says. He has the journal open and Spencer can see the top of one picture.

The journal is titled **Ryan & Brent’s Wild Adventure**.

Somebody has too much time on their hands and Spencer wouldn’t put it past Pete to be that person, to create a journal primarily to track Ryan and Brent’s steps. Pete’s a control freak and Ryan is pretty far out of Pete’s control right now, has been for a while.

He rubs his head and glares at his phone.

Ryan not having his phone was almost understandable. He doesn’t want Spencer to be able to lecture him. Spencer gets that even if he doesn’t like it.

Brent should still be answering his though.

“They checked into a motel about an hour ago,” Pete says. Spencer looks at the screen and there are two pictures of Ryan and Brent, heads bent close together walking toward the motel office and then standing in front of what was obviously their room for the night, Ryan has a backpack slung over his shoulder and Brent is carrying a duffel bag and a laptop case.

The pictures had been posted about 26 minutes prior. Spencer thinks that Pete has the journal tagged to send him e-mails when it’s updated.

They both still look calm and relaxed, Spencer can tell even in the blurry pictures. Spencer grips the hand not holding his phone into a fist, it’s not fair that Brent and Ryan are all happy and content and they’re freaking out because the last person in the world that Ryan should be with is Brent.

“Still no answer?” Pete asks, he nods his head toward the phone in Spencer’s hand.

Spencer shakes his head. “At this point it feels like they’re deliberately ignoring us.”

Spencer hasn’t been deliberately ignored by Ryan since they were kids and Spencer told Ryan that maybe he should come live with his family so Ryan’s dad wouldn’t have him there to hit.

Spencer had promised to never say it again, had never offered again. Hadn’t said anything when Ryan started climbing through his bedroom window and curled up on the floor to sleep, when he wore long sleeved shirts with high collars and makeup to hide the bruises that his father left on him.

Spencer’s phone ringing startles him, he hadn’t been expecting it because Jon had just checked in an hour prior and Brendon is off playing kickball with Joe and a bunch of techs.

And Brent and Ryan are too busy doing whatever the hell it is they’re doing to be bothered to return any of the voice mails he’s left.

He looks at the display and almost drops it when he sees Brent’s name.

“Hello?” he answers. He keeps his voice calm because getting angry is not going to solve anything at this point.

Even though anger would feel really fucking good right now.

“Spence?” It’s Ryan’s voice on the other end and he sounds completely normal. Spencer had sort of wanted him to sound frazzled and completely freaked out so he could be justified in calling the police.

“Ryan,” Spencer says. He doesn’t say anything else, when he looks over Pete is watching him intently.

“What’s up?” Ryan asks. Spencer wants to pull the phone away from his ear to glare at it. Because is Ryan kidding? ‘What’s up?’

“What’s up? What’s up?! Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Well, you called,” Ryan says. He sounds kind of confused. Like he can’t think of any reason for Spencer to be calling him.

Spencer takes several deep breaths, reaching through the phone and throttling Ryan was completely not an option and not really possible even if it was.

“Why are you with Brent?” Spencer asks. He thinks it’s a completely valid question. Direct and to the point.

“He stopped by, we talked, we decided to take a road trip,” Spencer knows that Ryan is shrugging on the other end of the phone.

“He stopped by,” Spencer says. “Brent lives in fucking Vegas, how the hell did he just stop by?”

“Spencer,” Ryan sighs. Like Spencer is completely missing the point of everything, Spencer isn’t missing the point because there doesn’t seem to be a point.

“Maybe you should come here,” Spencer says.

It’s a good idea now that he thinks about; maybe if they get Ryan back under their roof they can figure out how much damage Brent has managed to do. He’d probably gotten to Ryan when Ryan had been under the influence of something. Possibly Ryan has been in contact with Brent for a lot longer then Spencer thinks, maybe Brent’s the reason that Ryan’s been losing his mind over the last 6 months and doing things that go against every moral fiber that Spencer thought that Ryan had.

Spencer can’t think of any other reason that Ryan would think going on a road trip with Brent would be even _sort_ of a good idea.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ryan says. “Besides I think we’re getting ready to at least head in the direction of Vegas in a couple of days… Brent didn’t really pack for a road trip so he’s almost out of jeans and t-shirts.”

“Ryan…” Spencer starts.

“Look, I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay?” Ryan says. Spencer doesn’t even get a chance to breathe a syllable before the phone is dead in his hand.

Spencer looks over at Pete helplessly.

“I’ll call someone, they shouldn’t be that hard to track down, the fangirls are kind of making it little to easy for us,” Pete says, reaching for the phone.

“Have Zack go,” Spencer says. If anyone can bring Ryan to heel it’ll be Zack.

They probably should have done that as soon as Ryan decided that cheating on Keltie and taking pictures with drugs was a good idea, but even Zack deserves a vacation from the insanity that is them once in a while.

******************************************************************************


	3. Chapter 3

  
They name her Giselle; Brent isn’t sure how they know it’s a girl. It had just seemed right and she had purred against Ryan’s neck, arched her body into Brent’s hand when Ryan had spoke it so it he thought she’d liked it as well.

She figures out how to use her wings two days after her egg hatches. Brent spends more time standing on beds trying to coax her down from fans and light fixtures then he really feels is necessary. She can get up but she can’t seem to get back down again.

Brent thinks that she’s purposefully not learning, he’d leave her up there but if she really _can’t_ get down she’ll just stay up there looking up him with big dejected eyes and waves of rejection in his head.

They haven’t reached that point yet, Brent pretty much coaxes her down immediately and Ryan is absolutely no help at all.

He’s the taller of them and should at least be fetching her down half the time to make things fair, but he just laughs and laughs and tells Brent that he’s a pushover and she’s never going to learn to fly if Brent keeps babying her.

Brent doesn’t remember Ryan ever laughing like that so he lets it go for now, also Giselle has him wrapped around one of her little clawed toes. She’s got Ryan wrapped around it as well, he just shows it in different ways.

They stop at a Target and buy a backpack, it’s pretty big and the bottom is flat. She takes one of Ryan’s scarves (Brent isn’t even sure why he brought them, he hasn’t worn one of them since this started) and one of Brent’s t-shirts and makes herself a little bed to curl up in.

When they’re in a motel she curls up between them on the bed. The first night it had been Ryan’s turn with her and she’d just stared at Brent with big pale gray eyes and all he could feel was waves of rejection and loneliness.

“Oh my fucking god,” Ryan had said finally, throwing an arm over his eyes. Brent had rolled his eyes and climbed into the bed with them.

He thought the waves of emotion that tied him and Ryan together would stop once the egg hatched, apparently he was mistaken.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Brent has a two bedroom apartment and a job that he absolutely loved that he’s also pretty sure that he’s been fired from. He’s got some savings thankfully, so at least he won’t be homeless while he’s looking for a new job and trying to explain to prospective employers that the reason he was fired from the last (awesome) job was because he went insane but that he’s much better now.

He’s glad he’s not the only one though.

Ryan’s life pretty much fell apart as well so at least they’re in the same boat.

He’s been thinking about offering up the spare bedroom but he’s kind of using it as storage. Besides living at Ryan’s would be easier, his place is bigger; he has a closed in backyard so they won’t have to figure out how to let Giselle have outdoor time with cameras watching.

It’ll also make it easier to take care of Giselle if they’re not trying to hand off custody of her every other weekend… from the way she acts if they attempt to sleep in separate _beds_ he doesn’t want to know what’ll happen if they try to sleep in completely different beds in completely different houses that are in different states.

He hopes that Ryan has some good story ready for why they’re living together when Spencer inevitably ends up in the same space as them. Hopefully a story that doesn’t mention the dragon that they’re co-parenting.

He lets them in with his key and the apartment is just as much of a wreck as it was when he made the decision to go to Ryan.

“Wow,” Ryan’s gawking, Brent rolls his eyes because he’s been in Ryan’s house. Ryan’s hadn’t been much better. Obviously going insane for them had translated to not being able to pick up after themselves.

He took the trash out before he left for Ryan’s, so at least it doesn’t smell.

Ryan is carrying Giselle’s backpack, it’s partially unzipped and her little head is peeking out the top, she’s already mirroring Ryan’s facial expressions, right now she looks completely unimpressed.

Ryan runs a finger down her head and then jumps when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

Zack is standing behind Ryan in the doorway and he looks big and menacing and Brent knows his eyes are wide and he looks terrified.

He reflexively takes a step back, the back of his legs hit his coffee table and he ends up sitting down on it hard.

At least it doesn’t break, that would be just his luck right about now.

“The two of you,” Zack is shaking his head and Ryan’s eyes are wide and looking down toward the bag where Giselle is poking more of her head and body out to see what all the ruckus is about.

Brent can tell the second that Zack sees her, his eyes widen and both his hands are on Ryan’s shoulder yanking him back as though he’s going to shove Ryan behind him to protect him, even though Ryan’s the one holding the bag.

“Holy goddamn fuck,” he says in a loud voice as Giselle launches herself from the bag. Her wings flap and Ryan stumbles and drops the backpack as Zack shoves him behind him.

Ryan is patting Zack’s arm in what Brent assumes is supposed to be a comforting manner. The grin that he shoots Brent ruins it though.

Brent sighs, Ryan is grinning at him from around Zack’s body, Giselle is sitting on one of the blades of his ceiling fan and she looks like she’s making herself comfortable. This is so not the direction he expected his life to be taking.

He’ll be getting one of his kitchen chairs in a bit and coaxing her down, for now he and Ryan look at Zack who looks like he wishes he were anywhere but in Brent’s apartment looking at a little blue dragon.

“At least she doesn’t breathe fire, yet,” Ryan says.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Zack had figured that if anyone was going to find a mythological creature to bring home with them that it would be Brendon.

Or maybe Jon, sometimes Spencer when he was at his most whimsical (it wasn’t very often, you had to catch him on just the right day, in just the right mood) he’d never thought he would have to worry about Ryan.

Ryan had never struck him as the type to want to bring home the unicorn he’d found so that it could graze in his backyard.

Evidently he definitely _should_ have been worrying about Ryan.

Because Ryan was the one that figured out how to find something that shouldn’t exist.

Ryan is also the one looking at him from where he’s sitting right beside Brent (too close, Spencer is going to have a fucking cow) with earnest sincere eyes. Zack expects to hear ‘ _can we keep it, please, please, I’ll take it outside and play with it and make sure it’s fed and…_ ’

Zack hadn’t smelled any alcohol on either of them, they both look healthy enough, nothing that would indicate that they’ve been doing massive amounts of drugs together and that he’s gotten high just by being in contact with them.

He’s sitting in a recliner across from them; he dragged it there purposefully so that he could stare them down. The recliner is old and uncomfortable, he’s pretty sure there’s a spring poking him in the ass but he’s not saying anything about that.

He cranes his head back and yep, there’s still a little blue dragon perched on Brent’s ceiling fan.

He wanted to think it was a lizard, he thinks he could probably make himself believe it if it didn’t have wings and didn’t look like every drawing or computer generated one that he’s seen in every fantasy movie and book ever.

It’s looking at him with contempt he thinks, it definitely doesn’t like him. The absolute last thing that he needs is for mini-dragon to still hate him when it figures out how to breathe fire.

And it will, because Zack just has that kind of luck with things.

He’s _already_ getting a migraine thinking about what Brendon’s reaction is going to be. He’ll figure out a way to work dragons into the new stage show, of that Zack has no doubt.

“Her name is Giselle,” Ryan says.

He grins in the direction of the fan, it makes him look younger then he is and Zack wonders a bit hysterically if Ryan managed to find the fountain of youth when he was off finding dragons.

The dragon makes a chirping noise at him and stands up. She wobbles on the blade and Brent touches Ryan’s leg and stands up.

He steps up onto the coffee table and Giselle sort of daintily steps right into his cupped hands. When he steps down she rubs her head under his chin and when he sits back down next to Ryan she lays herself down across both of their laps.

The look she levels at Zack dares him to take one of her humans away. He’ll be bringing all of them he guesses, which means no planes to catch up with the tour, the dragon in the pet carrier would be kind of hard to explain away.

This means that his picture will end up all over that journal that Pete has taken to repeatedly refreshing.

“She can get up but she can’t get back down yet,” Brent says, his voice is quiet and he doesn’t look directly at Zack, hasn’t since Zack walked into the apartment.

Ryan leans into him a little bit and Zack clenches his fingers together, they’re both looking down at Giselle with fond looks.

He wonders when Ryan and Brent got married and why no one had thought to tell Spencer or Brendon and Jon.

He’s not going to be the one to tell them, because, this, is the exact sort of thing that people killed the messenger for.

  


******************************************************************************

  
“So evidently Wilson is coming with?” Pete asks.

Spencer stares at him because there is no way in hell that Zack is bringing Brent back with him. Zack had texted him that morning to tell him that they were on their way back, Zack would have told him if he was bringing Brent with him.

Spencer looks over Pete’s shoulder and he has the journal that is chronicling Ryan and Brent’s time on the road up, Spencer doesn’t think he ever closes it.

Someone has made a banner for it and the person that had just posted the latest pictures has evidently made an icon from one of the pictures, Spencer rubs at his forehead and doesn’t growl.

Pete clicks on the link and there’s six pictures behind it, four of them show Zack walking right behind Ryan and Brent, hands on their shoulders like he’s herding them along. Ryan has a backpack slung over his shoulder and Spencer wonders when he became a backpack person.

He digs his phone out of his pocket and steps aside so Brendon can peer at the pictures.

“You don’t think there’s something going on with Ryan and Brent, do you?” Brendon asks. He looks faintly distressed at the thought and Pete is frowning at the screen now.

“Brent is straight,” Spencer says as he texts, ‘ _???_ ’ to Zack. Bring back Brent was totally not in the list of instructions that he gave Zack before he left; it had five items on it, listed in order of importance.

Bring Brent back was nowhere on it.

“Ryan’s not,” Brendon says, he’s biting his lip.

“Ryan’s mostly straight,” Spencer says, his phone vibrates in his hand and he looks down at the screen. ‘ _lng stry keys 2 sml ull see thur_ ’.

Spencer scowls, that was completely not helpful and Zack was supposed to be on his side.

“If Zack is bringing Wilson you might want to get Jon on a plane,” Pete says, he glances over his shoulder at Spencer.

Spencer frowns at him. “Jon is having quality Tom Conrad time, he threatened to maim us if we dragged him away for anything less then a funeral.”

“And Zack was with you two and is now with Ryan and Brent and you can see where this is going right? I don’t _really_ need to spell it out for you, do I?” Pete stares at him.

Spencer nods, he can kind of see where he’s coming from. Ryan and Brent traveling together, Zack with them now…

He scrolls through his contact list and finds Jon’s cell number.

Either Jon can make the arrangements or Spencer can make him for him, but he’ll be on the plane in the morning if Spencer has to commandeer a plane and go get him himself.

  


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Zack, Ryan and Brent are already at the hotel when the buses arrive for check in. Spencer’s not quite used to traveling via bus again; he always forgets how cramped they are, how little the space is. He stretches and feels his back crack.

There’s a little sliver of dread making its way down his spine, he still can’t think of any reason why Zack would have brought Brent with him.

Brendon is bouncing on his toes and waiting for Spencer at the door.

Zack had called them the night before, leaving Ryan and Brent in the motel room they were all three sharing. Evidently Ryan wasn’t doing anything. No drugs, no alcohol, he was barely even drinking coffee anymore.

Spencer doesn’t think about the fact that all that stuff seemingly stopped with Brent’s reappearance in Ryan’s life. If Brent was in anyway responsible for all that ceasing then that means that he has some measure of control over Ryan that the rest of them don’t.

So it’s a coincidence, nothing more. Has to be, because Ryan hadn’t talked to Brent in years, Spencer would know if he had, so there is absolutely nothing that Brent could have said or done that all of them hadn’t already tried.

Coincidence… though if Brent had been the catalyst to Ryan straightening his act out Spencer hopes that includes eating, he’d been looking really thin the last time Spencer had seen him.

He looked healthy enough in all the pictures, but then the camera was supposed to add ten pounds so…

Jon should be on a plane in a couple of hours, Tom playing tag-a-long because Jon had allotted the next two weeks to Tom and if Jon was coming, Tom was coming as well.

Pete’s waiting for them when Spencer finally opens the door; Patrick has his laptop bag over one shoulder and is holding a guitar in his other hand.

“Zack tell you what room he’s got them confined to?” Pete asks.

Spencer shakes his head. “He just said he’d meet us in the lobby, and to try and not freak out.”

“Too late,” Patrick mutters.

When they walk into the lobby Zack is leaning against the check-in desk, he has a serious expression on his face and it doesn’t disappear even when Brendon launches himself at him.

“I’ve got your keys already,” he says. “But I figured you’d want to talk to the wayward children first.”

Spencer nods, he wants to talk to Ryan, Brent could jump of a steep cliff and he wouldn’t be heartbroken. From the corner of his eyes he can see Pete adding his own agreement, Patrick looks like he would like nothing more then to go to his room and forget about them all for a few hours. Brendon is latched onto Zack’s arm and he’s not saying anything.

“You really brought Brent?” Spencer asks. He keeps his voice calm, cool. He’s sure that Zack has a really good explanation for why Brent is waiting upstairs with Ryan. He can’t think of what that explanation would entail but he’s sure that it’s going to be fantastic once Zack gets around to sharing it.

“Ross and Wilson are kind of a package deal at the moment,” Zack says once the elevator doors close.

“Oh my god… they didn’t get _married_ did they?” There’s a look on Brendon’s face that Spencer can’t identify, he tries to mask it with a bland look of disbelief when Spencer glances at him but he fails because Spencer knows Brendon the way that everyone assumes he’s supposed to know Ryan.

He hasn’t known Ryan in years, the kid that had been his best friend, the one that he learned drums for so he wouldn’t be left behind, that kid is long gone and in his place is a person that Spencer sometimes doesn’t even like very much.

“No,” Zack says. He knows Brendon as well and when he looks at Spencer he just shrugs.

They wait in silence in the elevator, the doors open and Zack ushers them out, stops them at room 717.

“Look,” Zack starts as they stand there. He’s got a keycard in hand and he makes eye contact with each of them. Patrick still looks like he’d like to go to his own room and forget any of them exist for the night. “Just, be calm, no sudden movements and Brendon,” Brendon looks at him and blinks. “No.”

“What?” Brendon asks.

Zack opens the door and pushes it in, Spencer steps in first and almost immediately stops.

Ryan is lying on the couch; head resting on pillows from the bed, Brent is sitting on the floor in front of it, leaning against the couch.

And lying next to Ryan, with its head on Brent’s shoulder is a little, blue…

“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes next to him, Spencer can hear the click of the door shutting behind them.

Ryan is staring at them, Brent is staring at them; the little, blue obviously a mass hallucination is staring at them.

“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes again.

Zack walks past their clump of staring eyes and collapses onto a chair.

“Her name is Giselle,” Zack says. “She’s the reason that Ryan and Brent are a package deal right now.”

  


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	4. Chapter 4

  
They’re all staring; Ryan can’t tell if it’s him or Brent or Giselle that’s causing it.

In Brendon’s case he assumes its Giselle; he has an expression on his face that says he wants to be across the room and scooping Giselle up and snuggling her.

The others are probably staring because of Brent and him, because they’re sitting in close proximity and they aren’t fighting.

Brendon goes to take a step forward and Spencer grabs his arm, stopping him.

“Spencer,” Brendon says, it isn’t a whine though it gets fairly close. And there’s a wealth of meaning in that one word. Ryan can hear it, even though it isn’t spoken.

 _There’s a dragon, I want to touch it, and cuddle it and do you think Zack will let me _keep_ it?_

He and Brent would probably have something to say about any of that, but mostly about the last one and that would be an emphatic _no_ … Brendon had got just about everything else in the split (which he should have, Brendon was at least whole and Ryan had been like a quarter of a person when he’d had that fateful meet-up with Spencer); over Ryan’s dead body could he have their dragon as well.

She was the one thing that Ryan had left, besides Brent.

“It’s not real,” Spencer says. His eyes are wide, he looks a little panicked.

“Oh she’s real,” Zack says, he rubs at the arm that Giselle had decided to use as a landing post once they’d arrived in the room and she’d made her customary checks of the light fixture.

He’d complained that her claws had dug into his arm but she hadn’t even drawn blood so far as Ryan could see.

Brent pushes himself to his feet and sits down by Ryan’s legs on the couch. It gives them a really clear view of Giselle, wings pulled close to her body, curled up against Ryan’s stomach. Ryan runs two fingers across the top of her head and she arches her back slightly, chirping at him softly.

Brendon makes a sound deep in his throat that sounds a lot like want.

“You can…” Brent looks down at Giselle and she pulls away from Ryan’s hand to look over at him. Ryan looks as well. Brent looks like he expects to get escorted out of the room now that everyone had arrived.

Like he wasn’t needed anymore; Ryan wants to tell him that he’s needed just as much as Ryan and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Giselle was just going to let him walk away. The words wouldn’t find their way out of his throat; they had a habit of doing that.

The things that he most needs to say; the words that _should_ be said… they almost always got stuck right behind his tongue and wouldn’t move.

He touches his arm though, squeezes to remind Brent that he’s still there and so is Giselle, he can manage that much at least. Spencer makes a noise that Ryan can’t classify, Ryan doesn’t look at him, he’s waiting instead for Brent to look over at him and acknowledge that Ryan is sitting next to him.

That Ryan hasn’t gone anywhere.

Brendon pulls his arm out of Spencer’s grip and is across the room in half a second. He kneels by the couch and holds his hand out to Giselle; he doesn’t touch her, just waits for her to decide if she wants to touch him. His eyes are wide and filled with awe and wonder as he waits.

Giselle looks at him and then looks at Brent and he can feel the quiet hum of her indecision, Ryan tries to send back ‘it’s alright, it’s okay, he’s trustworthy’ and he doesn’t know if she gets it, if she understands but she touches Brendon’s fingers with her nose and Brendon’s face lights up.

“Oh,” he utters and he scratches a finger under her jaw. “Oh, hi Giselle, hi, hi.”

Giselle preens under the affection in his voice; whatever she’s picking up from Brendon she likes.

Thankfully they can’t hear anything anymore; Ryan doesn’t wonder if it’s because everyone has given up on them, because he’d been able to hear random strangers for days leading up to Giselle’s hatching. Now… there’s nothing, no random voices or shouts or feelings. Once Giselle’s egg had cracked and she’d come out all the other voices that Ryan and Brent had been hearing had vanished.

They can both still feel Giselle and they can sometimes, if they push and focus and _try_ , hear each other. Ryan thinks it might get easier, it’s just that the bond between the three of them is still too new, too fresh. It will most likely take a while to settle into something stable.

“Alright, I’m going to my room,” Patrick announces. “Because it’s obvious that either there’s a lot of drugs in the air to this room or everyone in it is suffering a psychotic break and really, we have a concert tomorrow, so…”

He doesn’t finish, he doesn’t finish because Pete wraps both his arms around Patrick’s waist and Giselle pulls away from Brendon and launches herself across the room.

If anything Brendon’s eyes go even wider at the sight, when Ryan looks at Spencer he looks close to hyperventilating, Zack is leaning back in the chair; head tilted back, eyes closed.

Giselle lands neatly on Spencer’s bag and looks up at him, rubbing her head against his right hand. Spencer makes another noise that Ryan can’t identify; it might be a whimper, a whine.

Giselle settles and looks at Patrick and Pete, she turns her head back to look at Ryan; he smiles at her and moves so he’s sitting on the couch instead of lying, he draws his feet up under him and leans slightly into Brent’s side.

She makes another chirping sound and then turns back to Patrick and Pete, Pete is taking a step forward already, he leans down and she looks up at him, tilts her head to the side and he rubs the back of his hand across the side of her neck.

Patrick makes a noise and Pete looks back at him.

“You should come touch her Patrick, so she knows who you are,” Pete says seriously. He reaches a hand back and when Patrick reaches out for it, probably more for something to grasp then anything else, he probably doesn’t expect Pete to yank him forward.

He stumbles slightly before he steadies himself.

Pete laces their fingers together and reaches out to Giselle once more; she eyes Patrick warily but still lets their fingers touch her back.

She chirps at them, she seems peaceful enough. She flaps her wings once, twice and then drifts her way back over to the couch. Ryan holds out an arm for her and she grabs on to it with both feet.

It had taken them the two days of traveling with Zack to get her to be able to do it. She switched between them, Brent then Ryan (and the one memorable moment earlier when she’d chosen to use Zack’s) like she was bound and determined to not play favorites.

She hops off, curling up half in Ryan’s lap, half in Brent’s. They both let their hands touch her and she lays her head down on Ryan’s thigh.

He can feel nothing but contentment from her, and knows that now that the introductions are done that she’s ready for her nap now.

He looks up and everyone is staring at them.

  


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Zack escorts them to their rooms when it becomes evident that Giselle is napping and Brent and Ryan aren’t going to say anything unless asked a direct question.

Spencer doesn’t even know where to start; he’s going to have to make a list in order of importance.

Starting with; _Brent? What the fuck?_

And then _dragon; when the hell did you find a dragon egg and why didn’t you **tell** anybody?_

And then; _no, **really** , Brent? What the fuck?_

They are in rooms on either side of the one that Brent and Ryan are evidently sharing, Spencer isn’t sure how he feels about Ryan and Brent sharing a room, and at this point he’s honestly trying not to think about it.

He’s also pretty sure that if they try the door at any point during their stay that it will be locked from Ryan and Brent’s side. Neither one of them seems inclined to interact with them more then they absolutely need to. Spencer has a feeling that they’ll be gone as soon as they can manage it.

“Did you see?” Brendon asks. He sets his bag at the foot of his bed and stands there, staring at the ugly paisley bedspread.

“The dragon? Yes, it was kind of hard to miss,” Spencer says. He will have to verify the dragons’ existence again in the morning. Just to be sure they hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.

“I was more talking about Ryan and Brent,” Brendon says.

Spencer frowns.

“With the leaning and the touching and…”

“I think if there was anything going on between Ryan and Brent that Zack would have told us,” of that Spencer was sure. Because _someone_ was going to have to do damage control and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Ryan. If Ryan tried they’d be married and have five kids before it all got straightened out.

“You think?” Brendon looks at him with wide eyes.

“I’m positive,” Spencer rubs at the spot in the direct center of his forehead. Maybe he has a tumor, that would maybe explain…

“He has a dragon Spencer, a _real live dragon_.”

Or maybe not.

  


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Jon appears with Tom in tow the next morning, knocking on the door to Spencer and Brendon’s room at 7 am. He comes bearing coffee which is the only reason that Spencer doesn’t kick him in the shin.

“So Zack really brought Brent back with him?” Jon asks. He’s settled himself on Spencer’s bed, back against the headboard. Tom has pulled the desk chair over and has his feet propped up by Brendon’s legs.

Brendon is still a lump under his blankets, and that is fine with Spencer. The less caffeine he manages to ingest the easier he was to handle during the day.

“It’s a long story,” Spencer sighs. He’s not explaining the dragon thing, that was sort of something you had to see to believe. And sometimes even then it wasn’t believable, he’d seen Giselle, he still isn’t sure that he hasn’t had a nervous breakdown over night and was now in a padded room drooling on himself.

“I kind of figured that you’d have Ryan under lock and key,” Jon says. He sips at his coffee, nudges Spencer’s leg with his toes.

“I just kind of assumed he was in the room that Zack was sitting outside of,” Tom says.

Spencer nods, Zack has evidently taken his threats of what he’s going to do if Ryan vanishes again to heart. He said he’d make sure that Ryan and Brent were there in the morning and evidently he was making sure of that by keeping watch on their room.

Spencer isn’t sure why it is imperative that he not let Ryan and Brent out of his sight, but he thinks he’s half worried that if he does that they really _will_ end up married to each other.

They’re already acting like it.

“He’s sharing a room with Brent,” Spencer says, Jon raises an eyebrow, cup halted halfway to his mouth. “Yeah, I don’t even know.”

“He seemed okay though?”

Spencer nods. “Looked better anyway, not like he was going to lose his mind any second.”

“Good, good,” Jon murmurs. “Maybe Brent…”

“If you even _think_ the words, maybe Brent is what Ryan needed to get his head on straight I will shove you off this bed and sit on you, don’t think I won’t.”

  


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Jon’s reaction to Giselle and Giselle’s reaction to Jon pretty much mirrors the evening before. He gapes, he gasps, she lets him scratch under her jaw.

Tom’s reaction to Giselle and Giselle’s reaction to Tom on the other hand… completely _not_ what Spencer was expecting.

Tom gives them a few minutes before he comes in, more because his phone rings then any desire for them to have Ryan and by virtue of his not having vanished over night, Brent, to themselves for a few minutes. He stays in the hall to answer it as they go into the room.

When he finally steps in, he stops right inside the room and stares.

Eyes wide and full of disbelief and Giselle who has been getting scratches from Jon and tilting her head like she has an itch and his fingers are the only thing that are going to hit it, jerks.

Head moving to face him and she launches herself at him, Spencer jumps, prepared to grab the dragon if she is indeed attacking and instead finds Tom is holding out his arm, the same way that Ryan had the night before. Giselle grabs hold, head rubbing under Tom’s chin and chirping softly but insistently.

He glances at Ryan and Brent and neither of them looks alarmed, they are both looking at Tom with intent, serious expressions.

“Oh hi there,” Tom is whispering. “Hi, hi,” he runs a hand down her back and Giselle leans into him. “Look at _you_ , you’re just a baby.”

“What’s her name?” he asks, looking at Ryan and Brent. Ignoring the looks of incredulous disbelief on everyone else’s faces.

“Giselle,” Brent says.

“Giselle, a pretty name for such a pretty little girl,” he says, she preens and coos at him, she rubs her head against his cheek. “When did you find her egg? I didn’t think…”

“A couple of years ago, she just hatched about a week ago,” Ryan says.

“She had a long incubation period?”

“That was probably our fault,” Brent mumbles.

“We kind of thought we were going crazy,” Ryan says.

Spencer doesn’t like the implication that Ryan and Brent had found Giselle prior to Brent being kicked out, because that would mean that Ryan has been lying to them for a lot longer then Spencer thought.

They’re sharing a look that Spencer doesn’t know how to decipher; the thought that Ryan has stuff he only shares with Brent is not sitting well with him, it feels like a rock solid lump in his stomach. He glances at Jon and Brendon and can see his own emotions plainly written over each of their faces.

“The voices can be a bit much, can’t they,” Tom looks at them both knowingly. “It’s all quiet now, though?”

“Except for Giselle, and sometimes each other. We have to concentrate for that,” Ryan says, Spencer is trying to ignore the fact that they’re sitting side by side; arms and legs touching, there is a whole lot of couch space surrounding them, they certainly don’t need to be sitting right on top of each other.

Tries to ignore the fact that Ryan and Brent can apparently hear each other in their _heads_. That apparently they could, at one point, hear other people besides each other in their heads.

That sort of stuff just doesn’t happen outside of movies.

“It’ll get easier.”

“She’s not reacted like that to anyone else,” Brendon says. He sounds kind of hurt by the fact that Ryan’s dragon apparently likes Tom more then she likes any of them.

“She can smell Sebastian on me,” Tom says. He gives her one last stroke and then holds out his arm so she can fly back to Ryan and Brent, she lays herself across their laps but her eyes don’t move from Tom’s face. She looks completely smitten.

“Sebastian?” Jon asks, at least he sounds as confused as Spencer feels. Tom smirks.

“That, would be my version of Giselle.”

  


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	5. Chapter 5

  
Tom taps softly on their door at 5 am the next morning. Luckily they’re up, Giselle has been restless all night and neither of them has gotten more then an hour of sleep.

There’s nothing wrong, that they can tell. She’s an excited, nervous bundle of baby dragon energy.

Tom just sort of raises an eyebrow at him when Brent answers the door, he doesn’t want to know what he looks like if Tom is looking that amused at him.

He probably looks like Ryan, exhausted, with a hint of exasperation.

“Good morning?” Brent asks. He would have figured they were the only ones up, since Giselle is acting like an infant who has decided that if she’s not sleeping, neither is anyone else.

“You wanted to meet Sebastian didn’t you?” he asks. Giselle is in Ryan’s arms, she’s squirming so Brent can pretty well figure out what her answer would have been if she could speak.

“The others aren’t coming?” Ryan asks.

“I think this time it should just be the five of us,” Tom says.

“Five of us?” Brent asks. He counts three of them, him and Ryan and Tom.

“Plus Giselle and Sebastian,” Tom says, he smiles though it looks kind of sad. Brent blinks at the thought that Tom just read his mind.

“You didn’t hatch Sebastian’s egg with someone?” Ryan asks, he’s got Giselle’s bag in his hand, somehow, even with all her squirming he’s managed to get Giselle into it. Her head is poking out the top and she looks slightly impatient.

She doesn’t understand what’s taking so long.

“Yeah,” Tom shrugs. “But he’s got better things to do then hang out with the crazy guy and the dragon he doesn’t believe exists.”

“He wasn’t there when Sebastian’s egg hatched?” Brent asks. He’s not sure how someone could be there and still not believe.

He pulls the door shut behind them, pushing to make sure it has latched closed. There’s nothing of value in the room with the exception of his laptop but that doesn’t mean he wants to lose that.

Tom snorts. “He was there, he still doesn’t believe,” he pushed the button for the elevator and waits.

“How can?” Ryan shakes his head, Giselle is staring at Tom.

“Evidently if you tell yourself something enough times, well, you can pretty much make yourself believe anything,” Tom says. “Besides, Sebastian and I, we’re fine without him.”

Brent looks over at Ryan and Ryan looks just as skeptical as Brent feels. Giselle freaks out when the lay down in separate beds, Brent isn’t sure how she would handle them having completely separate lives.

He doesn’t think about the fact that if Spencer gets his way they might find out.

He tries to but can’t think of just one person that it could be, there’s a couple of people that it could be, depending on how old Sebastian is, either one of the guys from The Academy Is… or someone from Empires.

He’s more inclined to believe that it’s someone in The Academy; he thinks that Tom and whoever had probably found Sebastian’s egg at about the same time that he and Ryan had found Giselle’s. They’d been touring with The Academy; it’s pretty much the only logical choice.

Plus the only people that Tom wouldn’t have had interaction with over the last couple of years would have been The Academy guys. He wonders which one it is.

There’s a car waiting when they get to the lobby and Tom takes the place behind the wheel.

“How did you get rid of Zack?” Ryan asks. He’s settling in the backseat, Giselle pushes her way out of the backpack to sit right next to him. Brent turns and can see her leaning into Ryan, she chirps at him and he grins and waggles his fingers at her.

“I told him that you guys weren’t going to bolt the minute that everyone took their eyes off you.”

“You know they’re going to be super pissed off when we get back,” Ryan says, he sounds slightly amused by that fact. Like he’s enjoying the prospect of watching everyone lose their shit because they’re missing… even though they won’t be there to actually, you know, _see_ them lose their shit.

Tom shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t care, getting Sebastian and Giselle introduced is more important and that’s going to be easier without a bunch of people that neither of them are tied to watching.”

“You don’t think they’re going to fight, do you?” Ryan sounds alarmed.

Tom laughs. “No, Sebastian is just as excited to meet Giselle as she is to meet him. Besides I think they’re littermates, or whatever dragons that are all born to the same clutch are called. Sebastian looked almost like Giselle when he was hatched; he has some of the same markings she has… I’m pretty sure the _last_ thing we have to worry about is them fighting.”

  


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They drive out to the middle of nowhere, Tom hasn’t turned his phone off but he set it to vibrate before they left the hotel. He should have just turned it off; he _should_ have just left it in the room that he and Jon are sharing.

He would have but he doesn’t want anyone to think that he’s absconding with Ryan and Brent and Giselle with no intent to return.

The red message light is blinking steadily at him, and he glances at the screen after he puts the car in park. Six missed calls from Jon, two from Pete, two from Spencer. He drops it back into the center console and twists in his seat so he can see Ryan and Giselle.

Giselle is impatient in his mind; Ryan and Brent are both nervous but excited. It’s the first time he’s felt anyone besides Sebastian and…

Well it’s the first time; since Sebastian’s egg had hatched that he’s heard anyone in his mind besides Sebastian and…

He purposefully doesn’t think his name, doesn’t identify him. Ryan and Brent are new at this, but there’s no telling what they’ll be able to pick up.

He doesn’t need them to feel sorry for him because his rider thinks he’s insane; he’s had years to get used to it, to come to terms with it.

 _Prior_ to finding Sebastian’s egg their relationship had been fraught with tension, after… it only got worse, because the egg wanted them together _all the time_ and that just wasn’t going to happen, they didn’t hate each other, but they definitely didn’t have the type of friendship where sleeping next to each other in the same bed was the norm… _or ever going to happen_.

He doesn’t know what the hell Sebastian was thinking bonding himself to the two of them, he should have waited for Tom to be out stumbling around with someone _else_.

 _Anyone_ else.

Because even though he’d been there when Sebastian had pushed his way out of his egg, even though he’d been there when Tom had named him…

He still firmly believes with every fiber of his being that their dragon is a figment of Tom’s imagination; it’s taken a long time for Tom to be okay with that, to come to the realization that he doesn’t need him.

 _They_ don’t need him. If Tom could have chosen anyone it would have probably been Jon.

Because Jon’s going to be awesome with Sebastian once Tom introduces him. He hopes that introduction will pave the way for Sean and Nick and Max and everyone else that he’s had to keep Sebastian a secret from for years for fear of discovery.

He hadn’t been sure what the world would do if they found out there was a dragon (let alone there now being two of them), he was pretty sure it was going to be a zoo of some sort for Sebastian, some sort of medical facility for him.

He’s kind of a little jealous that Ryan and Brent are attempting, at least, to rear Giselle together. It’s only been a little over a week though, with the others poking their noses in and Spencer being angry about Brent’s continued presence he only hopes that it’ll continue.

It’s easier with two he has a feeling, neither of them feels as stressed as he remembers feeling the first couple of weeks, let alone the first month.

Having _him_ snarling and snapping at him that he was crazy, delusional; having him ignore Sebastian as if he was nothing.

They’d wanted him to concentrate on the music, to help with the writing and _he_ was expending all his energy trying to not consciously hear _him_ in his mind, trying to keep Sebastian from chasing after him.

He’s probably lucky that he and Sebastian are both still sane, that first month had been hard, he’s _lucky_ that all they did in the end was kick him out on his ass.

If it had been someone else and he’d been in their position, he probably would have had him _committed_.

He opens the door and climbs out, Brent doing the same on the other side; Brent opens Ryan’s door and Ryan climbs out, Giselle wrapped up in his long arms.

Tom runs a hand down Giselle’s back, he remembers Sebastian being this small once.

A long time ago.

He walks a few steps away and whistles.

It’s a clear signal, one they’ve trained with and practiced and Sebastian comes almost immediately. Melting from the wooded area where he’d been waiting for them.

He can feel the startled amazement at their first sight of Sebastian.

Sebastian is his dragon, he is Sebastian’s handler. It’s been years since… well, he’s not even sure that he and Sebastian would still accept him as their rider if he were to show up.

They probably would, Sebastian still tries to push his way into his mind, it’s his _rider_ after all, someone that is supposed to be _his_. Sometimes he’s gets through, sometimes he doesn’t. Tom doesn’t even try anymore; he gave up once he’d screamed for help and none had come.

Sebastian and him, they’d got themselves out of the predicament just fine, it was probably then when Tom had realized that though they might _want_ him, they might not _need_ him as much as they thought they did.

Tom smiles at him, walks up and lays his hands on Sebastian’s nose. Sebastian huffs at him, bumping his nose against Tom’s shoulder. Tom plants his feet and plays the immovable object, it’s a game they play and Sebastian just nudges him, not even close to hard enough to topple him to the ground, but enough to reassure himself that Tom is there, is his.

Sebastian hasn’t taken his eyes off the three by the car and when Tom looks back, he can see Ryan and Brent staring at Sebastian with wide, wondrous eyes.

Sebastian hasn’t been small enough to hold in his arms since months after he was hatched. Now he’s big enough to ride.

Brendon would be demanding to ride him.

That’s why Tom didn’t bring them. He’s wanted Jon to meet Sebastian for years, but how do you tell the guy who’s supposed to be your best friend that you’re a single parent raising a dragon, when you’ve kept it from him for years.

Besides, this is about Sebastian and Giselle, and about Ryan and Brent and Tom.

This isn’t about the others, even if they want a place in this story it’s already started and their places while not clearly defined are definitely not to be involved in the ways they most likely would like to be.

Ryan’s arms release Giselle finally and she flaps her wings once, twice and floats on the slight breeze over to Sebastian. She hovers there, right in front of him and their noses touch.

Sebastian rumbles a greeting and Giselle chirps at him.

The only thing that he’s getting from Sebastian is pure unadulterated happiness. He’s found one of his littermates and he’s not alone anymore.

He has people besides Tom and… He has Giselle and now he has _her_ rider and handler.

 _They’re_ not alone.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Jon is mad; it’s been a long time since Spencer has seen Jon mad.

But Jon had woke up and Tom was gone, no note, no nothing. Then Zack had reported that Ryan and Brent and Giselle weren’t in their room which made Brendon mad.

Because that could only mean that Tom had taken those three to meet Sebastian, without them.

“It’s not fair,” Brendon says.

He’s pouting; Spencer doesn’t really want to deal with a pouting Brendon and a mad Jon. And Zack is no help, because Zack is being sort of zen about the whole thing.

“Wilson left his car and his laptop and all their clothes are still here, they’ll be back,” Zack says. Spencer wishes he were as sure.

  


******************************************************************************

  
When they go to Pete’s room it’s full, apparently at some point during the intervening hours The Academy Is… has descended.

Spencer looks at Pete, its common knowledge that Tom has pretty much mended most of the fences with the guys in TAI, but he hasn’t mended all of them. One of those fences is sitting slouched in a chair with a magazine open.

“They have an interview and a concert tomorrow,” Pete says. “They thought they’d come in early and hang while they had to be here anyway.”

He’s tapping away at his computer, when Spencer looks at the screen he can see that it’s the journal that’s been cataloging Ryan and Brent’s trip in pictures.

If Pete is on it; that means that there’s been an update.

“Pictures of them and Tom at a gas station about seven this morning,” Pete says, Spencer’s grateful he didn’t make him ask. He clicks on the link and there are two pictures of the three of them walking into a gas station and then back out again.

Ryan has his backpack on; Spencer knows enough by now to know that Giselle is probably in it.

They’re all three holding bottles of water; Brent and Tom both have bags of chips.

Spencer doesn’t even _want_ to know what the comments to the pictures are.

He rubs at his head. He’s had a headache going on two weeks now. It’s starting to get annoying.

He doesn’t say anything, Jon is leaning over Pete’s shoulder looking at the pictures, he’s calmed down a little. Isn’t as mad. He’d be even calmer if Tom would call and at least attempt an explanation as to why he took Ryan and Brent and didn’t take them, or at the _very_ least, _him_ to meet Sebastian.

Spencer thinks it has something to do with Giselle and possibly this Sebastian that Tom claims is his dragon.

William leans over his shoulder to peer at the pictures.

“So Tommy is wrapped up in this whole Ross, Wilson thing now?” he asks. He sounds amused; Spencer _wishes_ he could be amused about it. All he feels is Ryan moving further and further away from them; Brendon thinks that they’ll end up back together, he’s thought that from the beginning.

That all they need is some time apart, some time to do their own thing. Spencer isn’t so sure anymore that allowing Ryan to do his own thing was the smartest idea that any of them has ever had.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” William says.

“It’s a long story,” Jon says. He flops down into a chair, Mike Carden glares at him then returns his attention to whatever magazine he’s flipping through.

“Jon Walker, you must share every last tidbit with us,” William says. Jon groans when William drops into his lap.

“Tom and Ryan and Brent’s story to tell,” Jon manages to say. He shoves until he manages to push William off his lap. William pouts at him from the floor then smoothly gets to his feet.

“Are they involved, the three of them, in some sort of sordid love affair?” William sounds positively _delighted_ at the thought. Jon frowns at him and Spencer shakes his head even as he attempts to virtually scrub his mind clear of the image.

“It involves things that shouldn’t exist,” Spencer says. It’s the most he can say without talking about dragons and he hasn’t seen Giselle yet this morning, he hasn’t yet re-confirmed her existence to himself. He could still have a tumor or be drooling on himself in a padded room.

He notices that Mike’s hands still on his magazine, the expression on his face says he wants to kill people, Spencer wonders what the hell he’s reading that’s pissing him off, and why he’s still _reading_ it if its managing to make him that angry.

“You’re not going to share Spencer? I’m disappointed.”

“Not my story, one of them will have to fill you in.”

“They might not ever return.”

“Oh, they’re going to return,” Zack says, he’s glowering. “Conrad assured me that if I called off the watchdogs that they wouldn’t split and I’m completely holding him to that.”

  


******************************************************************************

  
They don’t come back before they have to leave for sound check. Spencer can see the indecision on Jon’s face. Should he stay and yell at them when they return or go to the concert and yell at them when they get back to the hotel?

He compromises; he comes to sound check with them, and calls the hotel in twenty minute increments. Eventually the hotel will just stop being nice to him, hopefully they’ll have come back before it happens.

Zack, at least, is remaining optimistic that they will return.

“I’ll have to kill them all if they don’t,” he says when Spencer asks. “And none of us want that.”

“We should bring Jon on stage with us,” Brendon says, he’s bouncing which means he’s had at least two Red Bulls while Spencer’s been watching Jon continue to get ‘no, they have not returned yet, yes we’ll give them the message to contact you as soon as they do’ messages when he calls the hotel.

“That’s not a good idea,” Pete says, Spencer doesn’t know what he’s doing in their dressing room, he’s got his own. “Patrick threatened to kill me if I didn’t go away for at least thirty minutes,” he says when he notices Spencer staring at him.

“I concur,” Jon says absently. Spencer hopes he’s agreeing with him not going on stage, he’d hate to have to explain to Ashlee why Patrick and/or Jon killed Pete.

Jon is holding his phone in his hand and periodically glancing at the screen.

When it rings he jumps slightly. ‘Tom,’ he mouths, before he answers it.

“Where are you guys?” he asks. Spencer stares at him and he can see Brendon from the corner of his eye watching intently. Pete has his hands loosely clasped together in his lap.

“Okay… when are you going to get back?” Jon drags a hand over his face. “Okay, okay… and I’m completely holding you to that. I can’t believe you managed to keep him a secret from me for this long.”

He nods twice and Spencer doesn’t tell him that Tom can’t see that, he drops the phone in his lap when he’s done.

“They’ll be back in a couple of hours, they’re going to stop for something to eat and to, I don’t know, see the fucking sights or something,” Jon sighs heavily. “He says the meeting between Giselle and Sebastian went wonderfully and everyone is happy and relaxed and…”

“They’re going to miss the concert,” Brendon says. He sounds disappointed, Spencer doesn’t know why; there was never any way that Jon and Ryan were going to come on stage with them, even _if_ Ryan had managed to stay in one place long enough for it to theoretically happen.

“I don’t think they’re really concerned with that,” Jon says.

Pete looks between them and Spencer notices finally that he has a puzzled look on his face.

“Who’s Sebastian?” he asks.

  


******************************************************************************

  
“Were they having a two for one sale on dragon eggs that day?” Pete asks.

Jon had given him the short version, it was the only version of the story they knew to give him. Because it wasn’t like Tom had told them anything besides the fact that he had a dragon named Sebastian.

“If they’d been having a sale Brendon would have been in line with his hands out before the words were even uttered.”

Spencer has his sticks in hand, they go on stage in less then ten minutes, he can’t believe that Pete is still asking them questions about this.

Brendon nods emphatically. “I might have actually got _two_ if they’d given me the choice,” he says. He’s holding up two fingers and his eyes are glowing. If there’s any way for Giselle or Sebastian to have baby dragons of their own Brendon will be the first one there with his hands out waiting for Tom or Ryan to drop one into them.

Spencer shudders at the thought of Brendon with a dragon egg; he can’t imagine how Tom has raised a dragon without it being all over the internet, he has no idea how Ryan is going to manage it, especially considering that Ryan _tells_ the net virtually everything.

Even things that are in no way true in anyone else’s mind but Ryan’s.

He doesn’t consider Brent’s role in this because he still hasn’t given up hope that Brent’s involvement will cease very shortly, he’s going to _keep_ hoping that, even though he thinks that severing the ties that have appeared between Ryan and Brent will be very difficult and possibly impossible.

He’d like to be able to give Brent credit, he’d like to be able to thank him for getting Ryan on the straight and narrow again, he can’t though, because that straight and narrow path didn’t put Ryan back on the _same_ path that Spencer and Brendon (and even Jon) are following, it put him on a completely _different_ path that they haven’t even been able to find shitty Mapquest directions for.

Ian appears in the doorway, he has his guitar slung over his shoulder already and he looks between them all.

“Are we going on stage, or what?”

“We’re coming,” Spencer says. He pulls at Brendon’s arm until Brendon follows him.

They’ve got a show to do and Spencer is a consummate professional. Ryan and Brent and all their problems will still be waiting for them when they come off stage.

Of that Spencer has no doubt.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Giselle is sleeping in her backpack, Ryan can feel the quiet hum of her mind and it’s sort of peaceful. His shoulders feel like they’re missing something because it’s Brent’s turn to carry her.

Tom is keeping step with him and Brent; they’d stopped at a couple of touristy type places on their way back. Pictures were taken at least at two of them, Ryan had seen the cameras, he wonders if they’ve been posted yet.

There’s a concert going on, he would have thought that anyone that was a fan of Panics would be _there_ , watching Brendon and Spencer on-stage, not following _them_ to rest stops and farmers markets.

He purposefully doesn’t wonder if they convinced Jon to go on stage with them, because he doesn’t want to know. Jon’s back where he belongs and he _should_ be on that stage with them.

Tom leaves the car with the bellhop and takes the ticket he gives him.

“You’re not having them return it?” Brent asks.

“I think it’ll be easier for all of us if we just drive ourselves, can you imagine us all crammed on a bus?” Tom laughs, it sounds bitter and kind of sad all at the same time.

“We have our own car,” Brent says.

“We brought Brent’s because we thought it would be more inconspicuous,” Ryan says.

“And yet the fangirls still managed to find you at a rest stop and post pictures of you,” Tom grins.

“They probably just recognized Ryan and then followed us to find out what we were driving,” Brent says.

Then they published that information on that stupid group and now everyone and their brother knows in what manner him and Brent are traveling. Maybe they _should_ take Tom’s rental car, shake them up a little bit.

Except that information is probably up on that damn group already.

“We shouldn’t be here anyway, and it’s not like they really want us traveling alongside them,” Ryan says.

“I think you underestimate how much Spencer wants to put a leash on you at the moment,” Brent sounds amused.

“And how much he thinks you’re going to be climbing on the bus with them tomorrow morning,” Tom adds.

“Then Spencer has joined us all on the crazy train and not had his ticket punched… I’m not even sure why we’re still _here_. They wanted to make sure that Brent hadn’t kidnapped me or forced me to travel with him under duress, I understand that, can even see where they kind of coming from… they’ve seen that I’m okay, Brent’s okay, nobody’s forcing anybody to do or go anywhere they don’t want to… I’m not sure what _we’re still doing here_ ,” Ryan knows he sounds frustrated, he feels frustrated.

Brent touches his back, rubs a slow circle and Ryan takes a deep breath.

Tom averts his eyes from them and Ryan wouldn’t notice if he hadn’t spent the whole day with Tom, watching him be relaxed and kind of happy in a way that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him before.

Tom jolts, his entire body stiffens and Ryan follows his eyes until he sees what caused the reaction.

Mike Carden is leaning back in a wicker chair in the lobby and he looks pissed as hell.

Ryan glances between them and wonders if he and Brent could stop them if they decided to get in a fight.

“Mike,” Tom says, his eyes are blank when Ryan looks over at him, his voice dull and expressionless.

Mike gets to his feet and walks over to them, they stand there shuffling and Ryan wonders if this picture is going to end up on that group page.

If it is it’ll be titled ‘awkward meeting between former bandmates’.

“Your boys are pretty pissed off,” Mike says, he’s talking to Ryan and Brent. He doesn’t take his eyes off Tom though. Ryan gets the feeling that even though he _looks_ like he’s trying to kill Tom with the power of his mind that he’s not _actually_ trying to do that.

Ryan shrugs. He thinks he agrees with Tom’s decision to only allow Ryan, Brent and himself to be there for that first meeting between Giselle and Sebastian.

They’d adored each other at first sight, but they could have hated each other.

“Why don’t you guys go upstairs, I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Tom says. He manages to drag his eyes away from Mike long enough to smile softly at both of them.

“Are you sure?” Brent asks. He sounds concerned about leaving Tom and Mike alone together, even if it is in a full hotel lobby. Like he expects them to decide to draw guns and shoot at each other or something.

“It’s fine,” Tom says. He sounds like he’s trying to reassure them that it’s okay, he’s not doing a very good job because Ryan in no way feels reassured that Tom isn’t going to come upstairs with bruises.

“We can just…” Ryan says slowly.

“He says its fine,” Mike says. He sounds pissed off, like he could care less about reassuring them and that, yes, there _will_ be pistols drawn at dawn.

Brent still looks indecisive but Tom is looking a little steadier, so Ryan tugs on Brent’s arm until he allows Ryan to pull him away toward the elevator.

The doors close and Tom and Mike are still standing there, Mike glaring, Tom looking very stoic.

There’s something more then Tom getting kicked out of TAI between them.

It takes him a second to figure it out, or come to a conclusion that may or may not be proven right when Tom comes to their room and he can ask him point blank.

“You think Mike Carden is Sebastian’s missing rider?” Brent asks.

Ryan nods, and doesn’t question how Brent and he are apparently having the same thoughts. If Tom is to be believed that’ll be happening a lot.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Brent is lounging on one of the beds; Giselle curled up on his stomach.

“We’re going to need bigger property,” Ryan muses.

“Sebastian _was_ pretty big, wasn’t he?” Brent grins.

“I’m thinking like a ranch in Montana or something,” Ryan says.

“That’s a nice dream, but there’s a slim chance between _hell no_ and _not even remotely possible_ that Spencer is going to let you buy ranch property in Montana,” Brent says.

“I think that Spencer doesn’t really have a say in the decision,” Ryan states. Even though he knows that Spencer probably has a lot more say in things then Ryan would admit out loud anymore.

There’s a soft knock on the door and Ryan goes to answer it because Brent has Giselle and they’re still waiting for Tom.

Tom stands there; Ryan opens the door wider and just lets him walk in, the door closing behind him.

“Mike is your rider, right?” Ryan asks.

Tom makes a noise.

“Mike _was_ Sebastian’s rider, I’m not sure if Sebastian would even accept him on his back at this point,” Tom says.

Ryan wonders if he knows that he’s lying.

  


******************************************************************************

  
There’s a tap on their door at a little past midnight, Spencer has been trying to distract Brendon from going to Ryan and Brent’s room.

They know they’re back, the lady at the front desk had been very adamant about that fact. Jon had ignored her glare, just asked if she’d given them all their messages.

Brendon wants to see Giselle, Jon wants to make sure Tom and Ryan are okay, Spencer would just like to rewind eight months and fix whatever it was that had gone wrong so he could have his band and his friends back.

Tom is standing there when Jon opens the door, he looks sheepish.

“Sorry,” he says softly and Jon tugs him into a hug.

“Next time though, right?”

Tom nods against his shoulder and loops his arms around Jon. Hugging tightly.

“Yeah, it’s just. It could have gone both ways, they could have seen each other and hated each other on sight,” Tom says. “We just couldn’t be sure.”

“I still can’t believe you managed to keep him a secret,” Jon says.

“When you keep a secret for that long, sometimes it’s easier to just continue keeping it secret, then to share it.”

“So Giselle and Sebastian got along okay?” Brendon asks.

“They got along famously,” Tom sits on the edge of Brendon’s bed. “He got along with Ryan and Brent as well; I think that Ryan will probably learn how to ride on Sebastian while they wait for Giselle to grow.”

The room stills and Spencer’s brain freezes, restarts, then freezes again.

Jon coughs, “How, uh, big is Sebastian anyway?”

Tom pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and looks like he regrets saying anything at all.

“Big enough to ride,” he says finally. His voice sounds weak, like he’s not sure of his answer.

“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes. “Oh my god, you’re going to let us ride him, right?”

  


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	6. Chapter 6

  
Bus call is always sort of chaotic. Everyone rushing to get their bags packed and get everyone on the road at a specific, designated time, without leaving anyone behind.

They’ve all heard the My Chem horror stories; none of them wants to be Ray.

Even though some of them would _love_ to be Ray.

Spencer is glad they’re almost done, they have maybe a half-dozen shows left then they can figure out what to do about Ryan and Brent and Giselle.

The bus has pulled away and Spencer has just closed his eyes on the couch, listening to Jon strumming on his guitar, listening to Brendon humming.

It’s familiar and he lets it lull him partially to sleep.

He keeps waiting for the minute when Ryan’s guitar would join in, if more then one person is making music everyone’s got to be joining in.

Ryan never joins in and he opens his eyes a crack, Jon sitting on the couch cross-legged. Brendon on the floor with one of Spencer’s tambourines.

“Where’s Ryan?”

  


******************************************************************************

  
Brent had put $20 bucks on an hour, Tom on 30 minutes. Ryan had said they were both nuts and abstained.

They still made him hold the phone, he’s in the back with Giselle and she’s sort of flopped on her side, she’ll chirp at him every so often but he thinks the way that she’s relaxing in his mind that she’ll be napping sooner rather then later.

Tom hands Brent the $20 when the phone in Ryan’s hand rings, doesn’t even wait to see who’s on the other end.

He makes a face when he sees Spencer’s name.

“Hey Spence,” he debates not answering but they’ll be meeting up for lunch (Zack made him promise that they wouldn’t disappear without notifying him that they were going to do so first, he’d tried to remind Zack that he wasn’t security for him, just Brendon and Spencer, but Zack had given him that look that told him that he was being stupid and Ryan had just let it drop, he doesn’t like arguing with Zack because Zack can break him in half) and he doesn’t want to deal with Spencer in a pissy mood because he’s not answering the phone.

“Where are you?” Spencer asks. His voice is all calm. Ryan knows him enough to know that Spencer’s all calm voice is really his ‘I’m extremely pissed off and will talk in short clipped tones because they haven’t invented a way for me to reach through the phone and _choke_ you, yet’ voice.

“In the car,” Ryan says. He ignores the smirk that Brent and Tom are sharing.

“You’re _supposed_ to be on the bus,” Spencer says.

“And wouldn’t _that_ be all kinds of uncomfortable,” Ryan mutters, Spencer is silent on the other end.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I _know_ that Zack told you that Brent and I, we’re kind of a package deal, I was there when he did. You haven’t made any secret of how you feel about Brent but _I_ kind of need him at the moment so, Tom and Brent and I, we’re going to be traveling in the car, mostly because it’s less uncomfortable for everyone involved,” Ryan knows he sounds irritated, they shouldn’t even _have_ to be following them. They should be able to find an abandoned field and put up a tent and spend a couple of days with Giselle and Sebastian and not worry about making lunch and dinner breaks on time so no one freaks out.

“If you want you can tell yourself it’s because we want to be able to give Giselle a chance to stretch her wings more frequently then being on a bus would afford her.”

“Ryan,” Spencer sighs. Like Ryan is trying his patience. “You’re at least stopping and eating lunch with us, right?”

“Zack gave us the itinerary,” the times the buses were stopping for food had been highlighted. Normally they’re not that in depth and there are choices involved, that’s evidently not the case when Zack wants to makes sure that Ryan, Brent and Tom make it to the various stops with the rest of the group.

Ryan thinks they’re going to have to talk about this, they _can’t_ follow them from the concert to concert, he doesn’t know what the hell Spencer is thinking, it’ll look like he’s fucking stalking them and then the internet might actually explode.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Spencer is trying not to care that apparently Ryan doesn’t ever want to see them perform, or ride with them, or spend any time with them unless he’s joined at the hip with Brent.

He’s trying not to care but apparently he does.

It’s just really hard to be interested in pictures of Ryan and Brent with big balls of twine and them in front of a windmill that apparently shows the shadow of Jesus when the sun hits it just right (evidently it just looks like a shadow of bear when the sun isn’t hitting it just right, Spencer, honestly, _doesn’t care_ ) when they barely hit the hotel at the same time that they’re getting back from shows and Ryan always looks like he’d rather be anywhere then with them.

Brendon is still thinking that he’s going to be able to drag Ryan and Jon on-stage with them for the last show at least; popular consensus on-line would agree with him.

Spencer thinks that Brendon, along with everyone else, is completely deluded.

Because Brendon hasn’t managed to convince _Jon_ to come on stage with them, and Jon should have been the easier sell of the two. Plus the fact that they can’t even get Ryan to be in the same city with them prior to them hitting the stage, he thinks that it’s unlikely as hell.

He takes it for a little over a week. Nine days to be exact.

But what’s the point of forcing Ryan to travel with them if Ryan’s just going to pretend they don’t exist.

He starts showing up at their door when they check into the hotels. It becomes his new thing, sometimes Brendon joins him, sometimes Jon does as well. But usually it’s just Spencer because everyone seems to believe that if they’re going to fix anything it’s going to be Spencer and Ryan managing to talk that’s going to do it.

It takes a couple of visits for it to sink into Ryan’s head that Spencer’s just not going to go away.

And it takes about that long for Spencer to realize that Brent isn’t going anywhere either. He’s certainly not going to disappear back to Vegas when they get off the road; Ryan and Brent are talking about buying property together and…

They’re not together, Spencer doesn’t think it’s even been considered as a possibility, but if either of them starts dating the vetting of the new prospective partner is going to be done by either Ryan or Brent (depending on whose dating) and not him and whoever Brent has that should be looking out for him.

Once that settles in Spencer can watch the two of them interact and not feel like he’s fighting Brent to try and get his best friend back.

Because whatever bond Ryan and Brent share it’s almost strictly through Giselle, they’re trying to figure out how to be friends, just like Spencer is trying to fix whatever went wrong.

It would be easier if he knew what had happened; if he could pinpoint the moment when things went bad he could figure out how to undo whatever had been done.

Brent leaves them alone on Spencer’s fifth visit. Just squeezes Ryan’s shoulder and takes himself and Giselle to Tom and Jon’s room.

“He said I should talk to you,” Ryan says after the door closes behind them.

“I just… can you tell me what…” Spencer can’t finish the question, because he doesn’t know what the question _is_. Doesn’t know how to verbalize, ‘when did drugs and alcohol become the way you dealt with things instead of coming to me?’ without saying those words.

And he doesn’t want to say those words, doesn’t want Ryan to shut himself off again like he had when Spencer first confronted him about the drinking, the way he had when Spencer had confronted him about his double-standard when it came to relationships.

“I was,” Ryan bites his lip; he links his hands together in his lap and squeezes his fingers hard enough that Spencer sees them whiten. He lays his hands over Ryan’s to stop him. “I was hearing things, in my head.”

“Ryan…”

“I thought I was going crazy, you know, and wouldn’t that have just been fitting,” he laughs harshly, bitterly; he still won’t meet Spencer’s eyes. “I just, one drink would make them go away, would… I just wanted everyone to be _quiet_ for a while, but… it started taking more then one drink, or two or… then drugs worked for a while, made everything silent.”

“They weren’t the _answer_ ,” Spencer says softly.

“Then what _was_? I didn’t know what else to do, and what would I even say. All I could hear was you screaming in my head about not being able to trust me to take care of myself, all I could hear was Brendon yelling about me because I wasn’t writing things he wanted to sing, Pete was so disappointed in me that being in the same room with him was painful; Keltie, Jon, Alex. You all were just so _loud_ and mad and angry and disappointed; I just….”

“You should have said something, we could have helped you, could have figured out what was going on.”

“You were already working on things,” Ryan says. “You and Brendon, you already had a plan on how to carry on and what was I going to do? Screw that up for you? Take that chance for you guys to succeed away because I was going crazy?”

Spencer closes his eyes briefly; Ryan’s still not looking at him. The stuff him and Brendon had been working on had been for _them_ , for _all_ of them, and the only reason they were working on it _separately_ was because Ryan and Jon had seemed pretty settled into a routine and _they_ hadn’t wanted to disrupt _them_.

“We never wanted to do this without you guys,” Spencer says.

“I knew that it was over,” Ryan says softly, his voice barely a whisper. “I knew it was over the day we met for lunch, before you even said a word, because you weren’t there. You weren’t yelling at me in my head, I could hear the guy two tables over contemplating taking an extended lunch break and our waitress was going through scenarios on how her boyfriend was going to react because she was pregnant. But _you_ were quiet.”

“I wouldn’t be now,” Spencer say, he puts one arm over Ryan’s shoulder and tugs him into a loose hug. He thinks it says something that Ryan lets him, that Ryan doesn’t pull immediately away. That maybe _Ryan_ wants to fix things as much as they do, as much as Spencer does. He just doesn’t have any more of an idea on how to do it then Spencer does. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”

Ryan nods once. Lays his head on Spencer’s shoulder.

“Brent’s not going anywhere,” he says. “I know that you don’t want him here, but he’s not going away and…”

“I know,” Spencer soothes. “I kind of already figured that out, Brent and I’ll figure out how to deal with each other, you don’t need to worry about that.”

He thinks it might not be that hard to remember that Brent was once a friend, as long as Ryan doesn’t start pushing for Brent to be part of the band again.

  


******************************************************************************

  
They’re at a diner, they’ve been eating a lot of diner food, Spencer doesn’t know why and it’s starting to annoy him. He’s asked Zack but Zack had just made some shrugging, grunting noise that Spencer took to mean that he didn’t know.

Zack always knows, Zack is the one that tells them when and where to stop, if Zack doesn’t know there is something really wrong and an apocalypse is forthcoming.

Ryan, Brent and Tom are outside; Tom is trying to teach Ryan and Brent to more clearly communicate with their minds.

Spencer’s not sure how he feels about that, but he gives them the space. He’d sat with them once and watching them think at each other was both creepy and off-putting; he lets them have their space to do this.

He thinks he’s been better about Brent. They’d had a five minute discussion that morning that hadn’t devolved into one of them spitting at the other.

Tom has assured them that the bouts of telepathy that Ryan had told him about had been because of Giselle, none of them are sure exactly why it happens; Tom is of the mindset that it’s supposed to allow them to protect themselves and Giselle from attack.

But they don’t know for sure, and it’s not like there’s an Official Care and Feeding of Dragons book to explain it to them.

Ryan has made noises about writing one. Spencer is pretty sure if he does that it’ll have to be marketed in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section.

In Ryan and Brent’s (and Spencer supposes Tom’s as well) case it had just served to make them think they were going crazy and put barriers between them and the people that they cared about.

He’s watching them from the window, he purposefully sits in the front of the diners so he can watch them outside, it makes it easier for the fangirls to spot him, but it also makes it easier for him to keep on eye on the trio outside.

Brent’s not with them at the moment which means that it’s probably his turn to walk with Giselle. Spencer half wonders if the places they eat aren’t being chosen because of their proximity to wooded areas in which to allow them privacy to walk their dragon.

He’d ask Zack again but Zack will just give him that look, again, which means that he doesn’t know.

He’s waiting for Brendon to finish; Jon is already done and is leaning, head tilted back on the top of his chair with his eyes closed.

He only notices that something is going on because of the way that Ryan and Tom both jump, the way they both come to their feet in a split second and then the way that they go running.

“What the fuck,” he says under his breath and tosses his napkin on his plate. Zack has seen whatever he saw as well, he’s only a few steps ahead of him, Brendon and the others right behind.

Spencer hopes someone stayed to take care of the bill.

As they get closer Spencer can hear Giselle shrieking; panicked and frightened. It’s ear piercing and it doesn’t stop. Not even when Ryan reaches her, he holds up his arm and she grasps onto it, and just continues shrieking at him.

“Ryan, you have to calm her down,” Tom’s voice is shaking, and he’s got hold of Ryan’s other arm.

“Brent,” Ryan says, his voice is quiet and his eyes have that vague, distant look that Spencer had learned to associate with the drugs that Ryan had been doing.

He hasn’t been doing any drugs though, so this must be what Ryan going into shock looks like instead.

“ _Ryan_ ,” Tom grips his shoulders and shakes him. “Ryan, you need to calm her down so we can find out what happened.”

“Okay,” Ryan takes a deep breath, then another. His hands are shaking when he touches Giselle; he runs a hand down her back. “Okay, shh, it’s okay,” his voice trembles, breaks. “Its okay sweetie, it’s okay, we’ll get him back, it’s okay.”

Brendon’s fingers are digging into Spencer’s arm, Spencer would peel them off because Brendon needs to clip his nails and Spencer thinks he’s drawing blood, but he can’t because his own are digging into Jon’s.

Ryan touches his forehead to the top of Giselle’s head, when he lifts his head his eyes are wet looking but he looks steadier.

“Okay,” he says as he looks at Tom and Tom is focused intently on them. They’re all three of them staring at each other and Giselle’s shrieking has stopped, now it’s some sort of whining sound.

Spencer would almost rather have the shrieking back, because the whining sounds like Giselle’s heart is breaking.

“We need Sebastian,” Tom says and his eyes go skyward.

“We need to _find_ them,” Ryan says, shaking his head, he takes a step and Tom grabs his arm again. “We can’t wait.”

“The nearest portal is about two miles away, we’ll never make it there before they get him through it, we _need Sebastian_ ,” Tom says his voice is emphatic, like he _knows_ what the hell he’s talking about.

“How do you know where they’ll take him?” Ryan asks, his eyes are wide. Tom doesn’t look at him. “Tom? How do you know where they’ll take him?”

“The closest portal,” Tom stops, takes a deep breath. “The closest portal is the one they tried to take Sebastian and I through,” Tom says quietly, he takes two steps back, away from them and Spencer hears the roar before he ever sees where it comes from.

It’s filled with anger and rage, the shadow that falls over them is huge. Spencer _knows_ that Sebastian is supposed to be big enough to ride, Tom had told them that much, but…

The dragon that glides to a landing in front of them is huge, bigger then Spencer had thought, when Tom had said big enough to ride, he’d thought maybe it would be the size of a horse, with wings. The dragon that is staring at them is much, _much_ bigger then a horse with wings.

If Giselle is going to grow to be that big there is no way that Ryan and Brent are going to be able to hide her. Spencer isn’t even sure how Tom has managed to keep the entire world from finding out about Sebastian.

“Oh my god,” Brendon’s voice is awestruck; it’s intertwined with Patrick’s, “Oh dear lord.”

Tom is leaning into Sebastian’s body, he’s saying something to his dragon too low to hear but Sebastian sinks to the ground, one leg stuck out to the side of him in what looks to be an uncomfortable angle.

Spencer figures out what it’s for when Tom runs back, grabs onto Ryan’s arm and drags him over to Sebastian. All but shoving him up onto him.

“Wait a minute,” Zack starts, he goes to take a step forward and Sebastian’s head swings over to face him, Zack stops.

Tom and Ryan are ignoring them.

“Tom?” Ryan asks, Tom is pulling Giselle from her perch on Ryan’s arm one claw at the time. “Tom, Sebastian is yours.”

“Sebastian is a dragon without a rider, you are a rider currently with a dragon too small to ride,” Tom takes a deep breath and whispers something Spencer can’t hear in Giselle’s ear, it causes her to let go and transfer her footing to Tom.

“I’ve had exactly _one_ flying lesson, I am in no way a ‘rider’,” Ryan says, he sounds calmer, his eyes are clear now.

“You will be, besides you’re not going to have to do anything, they’re going to take one look at Sebastian and bolt, I should have figured they would try something like this while Giselle was still young enough to shuttle back, I didn’t think they’d settle for just getting their hands on Brent.”

Tom moves back up in front of Sebastian, places both hands on his nose and leans forward.

“Fly fast,” he says softly. “Be safe.”

Giselle chirps at him and Spencer thinks if they could understand her that they’d probably hear her telling Sebastian to take care of Ryan, to bring back Brent.

Ryan doesn’t say anything, just looks down at them from his perch on Sebastian’s back. Tom moves back to the group and Sebastian takes off across the ground, he takes four steps and then takes flight, it’s smooth and looks effortless.

They watch until they’re gone.

“Tom?” Zack puts his hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“Sebastian will take care of him, Giselle will let us know if they’re successful.”

Tom touches Giselle’s back and they wait.

  


******************************************************************************

  
“Who _exactly_ took off with Brent?” Brendon asks.

They’re sitting on the ground, Giselle is staring at the woods like she can make Ryan and Brent and Sebastian appear by her thoughts alone.

His watch says it’s only been an hour, it feels like ten.

“Elves maybe,” Tom says after a minute. “I think, I don’t know, they didn’t really give me a chance to ask before they knocked me unconscious… and they might not even be the ones that took Brent.”

“Someone tried to _kidnap_ you? Why the hell didn’t you _say_ anything?” Pete asks, he sounds angry. Spencer keeps forgetting that he’s sitting there. He’s much quieter; more focused then any version of Pete that Spencer has ever come into contact with.

“Why? By then it didn’t matter, I wasn’t in The Academy anymore, no one but Jon even cared if I disappeared for a few days,” Tom sounds sarcastic, Spencer can hear the sadness in his voice. He wonders if this is what Ryan would have sounded like if they hadn’t found out about Giselle.

“Tom…” Jon starts. Tom shakes his head; he’s evidently not having this discussion with them.

“Where’s Sebastian’s rider?” Brendon asks. He’s bouncing; he’ll probably be volunteering for the job if Tom opens it up for applicants.

“He’s… not in the picture,” Tom says, he averts his eyes and looks sad, Spencer sees Jon’s eyes narrow in response, then widen.

Jon has probably figured out who the rider is with his special Jon Walker skills, Spencer will corner him on the bus when this is all over with and together they’ll figure out how to make Tom not look like that anymore.

Figure out how to fix Tom like they’re fixing Ryan and Brent.

Tom blinks and stands and Giselle starts chirping wildly, wings flapping as she takes to the air.

“Giselle, stay,” Tom says. His voice is low but commanding, Giselle listens to him hovering in the air in front of him.

They all climb to their feet, Brendon is shifting on his feet next to Jon and Zack has his arms crossed over his chest, Pete has his looped through Patrick’s. Everyone else had been sent back to the buses, they’ll get explanations when they get to the hotel, if they’re not making a trip to the hospital for Brent.

Spencer is sure there will be confidentiality agreements waiting for them all to sign when they get back to the hotel, Pete had been on the phone for a while after he sent them away.

It’s maybe a minute later when Sebastian melts from the woods, it’s the only word that Spencer can think of that describes it, one minute he isn’t standing in front of them, the next he is there and Ryan is climbing down.

Spencer wonders if that’s how Tom has been able to hide Sebastian, because Sebastian can just make himself not be there.

Tom’s next to them in a blink of an eye, stroking a hand down Sebastian’s side, the ground rumbles with Sebastian’s resulting purr, then he moves to help Ryan get Brent down.

Brent is holding his arm to his chest like it’s been hurt, he’s got blood on his temple and his lip is bleeding.

He hadn’t given up without a fight, and he’d gotten Giselle away without both of them being taken.

Spencer has to give him credit for that, he’d kept Giselle safe, he’d kept Ryan safe.

He’s wincing as he stands there, Ryan’s arm over his shoulder, keeping him close. Giselle is rubbing noses with Sebastian chirping at him while he answers her with low grumbling noises that sound pleased.

She finishes her discussion with Sebastian and flies over to Ryan, using his free arm as her perch, she rubs her head under Brent’s chin, then under Ryan’s, then chirps at Tom.

“Hospital, I think,” Zack says, he’s walking over to them and he stops to touch Sebastian’s nose, like it’s nothing out of the ordinary that there’s a dragon the size of a bus sitting there, Spencer thinks he’s just proving that Sebastian is real and they all haven’t had gone insane waiting for Ryan to return.

“I’m fine,” Brent says. Zack pokes the arm cradled to his chest with his finger. Brent makes a low pain-filled noise.

“Hospital,” Zack says.

“Yeah, okay.”

Zack takes Ryan’s place at his side and walks away with him. Spencer wonders why Ryan isn’t going but then sees Giselle still there, clinging to Ryan’s arm, both of them watching him go.

“Spence,” Ryan starts. He doesn’t finish before Spencer is taking the twenty steps and pulling him into a fierce, one-armed hug. Giselle leans into his shoulder, chirping in his ear as he stands there holding onto Ryan.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Ryan doesn’t look like he’s letting go of Spencer any time soon. He’s got his forehead resting on Spencer’s shoulder and Brendon has moved up behind them. He hasn’t thrown his arms around them yet but he looks like he really wants to and is just waiting for the invitation.

“Jon,” Tom says, he lays a hand on Sebastian’s side and looks at his best friend.

Keeping Sebastian from Jon had been the hardest thing that Tom has ever done. He’s not used to keeping secrets from Jon, there were times that he’d forget that Jon didn’t know and almost tell him. And it had never been about lack of trust, he’s always trusted Jon more then he’s trusted anyone else.

It had been more the fear of rejection, of Jon looking at him and Sebastian and seeing a freak instead of his best friend.

In a way he’s kind of grateful that Ryan and Brent had found Giselle’s egg; that it had taken them so long to pull it together for her to hatch.

He’s grateful because it gave him the perfect opening to introduce Sebastian to his favorite people after keeping him a secret for so long, and Ryan and Brent’s baby dragon has kept them from asking him why it had taken him so long in the first place.

It’s a distraction that won’t work for very long and added onto that eventually it appears he’ll have to deal with Mike. Mike has made the perfectly clear.

Jon walks forward and stops right in front of Sebastian, looks him directly in the eye.

“Hi Sebastian,” Jon says. He keeps his voice soft and pleased and Sebastian rumbles at him, then pulls his wings in tight and flops onto his side, the ground shakes a little. He looks at Jon expectantly and the eyes that Jon shoots at Tom are wide and questioning.

“He, uh, wants you to scratch his tummy,” Tom scratches his head, grins. “It’s a sign of trust and affection.”

Pete moves up beside Jon and he’s grinning. “Oh, you’re just a _big puppy dog_ , aren’t you,” he says. “I’ll help you Jon, we’ll give you the best scratches _ever_.”

“Can I help?” Brendon is there between one blink and the next. His face is beaming and Ryan is laughing hysterically in his head, Tom looks over and he’s still standing next to Spencer, arms over each others shoulders and he’s smirking.

Half his mind is taken up with worrying about Brent, the other half is laughing at Tom for being worried about telling anyone about Sebastian.

In their group, dragons are pretty much going to be considered the norm apparently. Though he really hopes that no one _else_ has found a dragon egg. He thinks hiding Sebastian and Giselle is going to be hard enough.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Zack brings Brent to the hotel with his arm in a sling.

“It’s not broken,” he says when Ryan looks scared at the thought, Ryan still treats him like he’s a fragile piece of glass. Giselle cuddles with him on the couch, making a point of avoiding that side.

When he takes two of his pain pills and curls up on his side on the bed, Giselle is right in front of him and Ryan lies beside him. Hand touching his back constantly, like Ryan needs to reassure himself that Brent is still there.

He hurts, but he won’t hurt forever and he’s lulled to sleep by the fact they’re all safe.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Zack sends their car away, he commandeers one of the roadies to drive it back to Ryan’s place after the roadie signs the new confidentially agreement that Pete has had drawn up.

Ryan just looks at him with wide eyes, “Zack?”

“Everyone’s on the buses,” Zack says, Tom shifts on his feet next to Ryan, Brent is sitting in one of the chairs in the lobby, his eyes are closed and he would have been asleep the second they got in the car, but now it appears they’re not going?

“Okay?” Ryan is just confused.

“If I’d known that people were going to be trying to kidnap you, you wouldn’t have been traveling in the car in the first place,” Zack says. He sounds like he’s taking it as a personal affront to his ability to protect them that someone had gotten close enough to snatch Brent.

“You’re not our bodyguard Zack. You’re Brendon and Spencer’s,” Ryan reminds him. Again. This is like the fifth time that he and Zack have had this argument.

It always ends the same way, with Zack shooting him a look that says he’s an idiot and a complete moron.

Like the one that he’s getting right now.

“Bus,” Zack jerks his thumb towards the front of the hotel.

“But…”

“I want everyone in one place, no one that has anything that is small enough to be taken goes for walks without at least two other people, and both those people can’t be people that would also be of interest to those that would be taking them,” Zack’s brow furrows, Tom is shaking next to him, Ryan thinks he’s trying not to laugh out loud.

Ryan taps Brent on the shoulder and Brent’s eyes open.

“We’re ready?” Brent asks, his eyes look heavy and dazed.

“Apparently we’re riding on the bus today,” Ryan says.

Brent manages to get to his feet without using his arm to push himself up. He’s in more pain this morning then he was when Zack brought him back last night.

“Is there a flat surface that I can lay on?” Brent asks, he lists to the right slightly and Ryan puts an arm around his waist to keep him from toppling to the ground.

“I made Brendon clear out the extra bunks, there’s enough room for you guys to have somewhere to crash,” Zack says.

Brent nods. “Okay, are we done then?”

“Buses are out front,” Zack says, Tom takes Ryan’s place and propels Brent out the door. Ryan shifts on his feet; Giselle is a heavy weight against his back, Brent being hopped up on pain meds is resulting in Giselle spending most of the same amount of time sleeping in her backpack.

“Zack.”

“We’re not taking any chances, if I’d known that someone had tried to take Conrad you guys wouldn’t have been driving along all by yourselves anyway.”

“It was only the one time,” Ryan says.

“That’s he’s _told_ us about, I’d rather be safe then have fucking _elves_ manage to actually take one of you somewhere we can’t get you back,” Zack says.

Ryan bites his lip and nods.

“They don’t need to worry about us,” Ryan says softly and Zack gives him that ‘you’re an idiot’ look again.

“Trust me, I’m pretty sure that Spencer worrying about you is part of his full-time job description and this is easier on all of us then having Spencer figure out a way to permanently attach himself to your hip, or Jon handcuff himself to Tom… and those were the other options being bandied about.”

  


******************************************************************************

  
The phone call is not unexpected and he’s kind of glad that Jon and Spencer and Brendon are hovering over Ryan and Brent because that means that he’s alone to deal with it.

Tom’s been waiting for it since everything went to shit days earlier. When Brent was taken, and Sebastian had been on his way to them before Tom had even called for him.

No matter how much he’s blocking them out he _had_ to have heard Sebastian’s rage.

Jon knows, Tom doesn’t know how, he’s not told him but when everyone had gone to their rooms that night he’d just sat on the edge of the bed that was his and looked at him.

“Mike Carden,” he’d said and Tom had shaken his head.

“It’s old news Jon,” he’d said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Jon had just looked at him, with eyes that knew him too well. This is his best friend, his brother. The one person that he’d wanted to tell from the beginning.

“I think it does,” he’d said and Tom had shook his head and turned away. He wasn’t talking about this; he had _no intention_ of talking about it.

Except everyone seems to want him to _talk_ about it. To talk about his feelings and his emotions and tell them what went wrong, why he and his rider couldn’t make things work like Ryan and Brent are, and what they need to do to help him fix things.

He doesn’t know how to tell them that his rider thinks he’s a nut job and that at least Ryan and Brent had _both_ thought they were going crazy so they were able to bond over their imminent psychiatric hospital stays.

He can’t say the words anyway because now Jon knows, and Jon, at least, is still friends with The Academy boys, Tom doesn’t want to ruin that for him, not really.

He’s waiting for the call because that night when they’d got back from introducing Giselle to Sebastian and Mike had cornered him in the hotel lobby, his whole purpose for being there to meet them had been to tell that him he wanted to see Sebastian.

Tom had said no, had refused, but he knows that Sebastian knows that Mike has expressed an interest. Knows that Sebastian is pushing at the boundaries of Mike’s mind and that Mike is, apparently, letting him in.

Tom remembers what Mike’s mind had felt like; and he can feel the remnants of Mike’s presence when he reaches out for Sebastian.

He doesn’t know what’s changed, as far as he knows absolutely nothing has, he doesn’t know why Mike is trying now when before it had been big metal walls and cruel reminders of the fact that he was crazy.

He wonders though, if _he_ were to reach out, like Sebastian is, if Mike’s mind would be there. If he’s just waiting for Tom to try before he pushes.

Tom _doesn’t_ try, because he doesn’t want to reach out and find out that Mike’s only reaching out to Sebastian and that he has no intention of reaching out to Tom.

“What the hell happened?” Mike asks. He sounds gruff, abrupt on the phone.

“Someone tried to take off with Brent,” Tom says.

“Someone? That doesn’t tell me who,” Mike says, he sounds mad, Tom can read between the lines, it sounds like he wants to know who he has to beat up.

“Because it doesn’t matter, it’s taken care off. We got Brent back; Zack is keeping all his ducklings, even his adopted ones, under his wing. _We’re all fine_ ,” Tom doesn’t know why he’s trying to reassure Mike, maybe because Mike sounds like he actually gives a damn.

If he gave a damn he would have been there when it was Tom and Sebastian they were trying to force through the portal, Tom keeps reminding himself of that. It’s a little too much a little too late.

“Sebastian was pissed off,” Mike says, he sounds impressed at that.

“Yeah, I know, I was there.”

  


******************************************************************************

  
Tom is sitting in front of the couch, Brent and Ryan are sitting side by side and Giselle is lounging across their laps. Every so often she’ll move forward and settle her head on Tom’s shoulder. He’ll reach up and scratch her head and she’ll chirp at him.

Spencer is being quiet, he has a book in his hands and he’s got it open but he’s not actually reading anything it.

They’re like their own little close knit family, bonds tightening between them every day. At least now he doesn’t feel like he’s being cut out, if he went over right now, he could sit next to Ryan and Ryan would lay his head on his shoulder and Giselle would butt her head against his leg until he gave her scratches.

“Mike wants to see Sebastian,” Tom says softly. Jon’s hands go still on his guitar and across the length of the bus; in the tiny kitchen area Brendon’s eyes are wide. His mouth opens and Spencer shakes his head.

“What are you going to do?” Ryan asks. He touches Tom’s shoulder, squeezes.

“I don’t know. Sebastian knows, Mike’s been reaching out to him, Sebastian’ll go to him on his own if I don’t decide soon.”

“Sebastian won’t…” Jon starts.

“Mike is our… his rider, you don’t…” Tom shakes his head, his hair covers his eyes and Spencer wonders if that’s why he keeps it long like that, to make it harder for people to see his face, his eyes. For people to see what he’s _really_ feeling.

“It’s like having a part of you not there,” Tom says softly. “Like there’s something missing, only it’s a space that can’t be filled by anything else.”

Spencer sees Brent and Ryan lean into each other. Brent’s chin has dropped and he’s looking at his hands, Ryan has one of his laying over them. Spencer wonders how easily the bond that exists between them could turn romantic, if Brent decided that he wasn’t completely straight, if Ryan decided that he could take a chance.

It would probably be easier for them that way then any other.

  


******************************************************************************

  
 **The End:**

Spencer finds them their property.

Honestly he hadn’t even wanted to be involved. The thought of Ryan living with Brent all the time, it doesn’t fill him with warm fuzzy feelings.

Brendon is still pouting, even weeks after the end of the tour, because he’d never got Ryan and Jon on-stage with them. Jon had gone out with Fall Out Boy, pulling on Pete’s bass during the last song so that Pete could go play with the audience.

Ryan and Brent had stood side by side backstage, there’d been pictures taken by venue security posted the day after the concert.

The security guard was fired, but the pictures were still out there, Ryan and Brent with Ryan’s arm over Brent’s shoulder, Brent’s arm still in the sling, heads bent close together. It looks more incriminating then it is and everyone is speculating that Ryan and Brent are dating.

They aren’t. Spencer knows this, but if he were just some average person looking at the pictures he could see how someone might think they were.

He _isn’t_ the average person though, he’s someone who counts Ryan Ross as his best friend and his best friend is telling him that there is nothing going on and Spencer doesn’t care if he’s lying as long as he can believe the words.

Spencer doesn’t think he’s lying though. He hopes.

Spencer finds the property by accident; Tom had told him what he thought they needed; how many acres and the fact that it needed to either have a barn big enough to convert to housing for Giselle and Sebastian or enough land to build one.

Spencer finds it because Brendon has been looking at dude ranches in Wyoming (Spencer doesn’t know, he doesn’t ask either, Brendon will tell them when he’s ready) and sends Spencer a link. Spencer doesn’t know what makes him look, but he clicks on the other links and those links sends him to others and others and four deep in Spencer finds the listing for one that has closed down.

He sends for information from the company handling the sale and has them send him pictures, then e-mails them asking for specific pictures.

Of the inside of the barn.

Those are the ones that he takes to Ryan and Brent and Tom. He sets them down at a table, Jon sitting next to Tom, Brendon hovering over Ryan’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Ryan smiles, the soft real smile that they only really see when he’s happy, relaxed. They’ve been seeing it a lot lately; Spencer hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed it. How long it had been since he’d seen Ryan actually, truly, happy.

“This is perfect,” Tom breathes, Brent is grinning widely.

“It’s an old dude ranch, they went out of business or something so it’s for sale dirt cheap, because apparently not many people actually start them up now. I don’t know. The main house has got like twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms, big kitchen. It’s gated, private,” Spencer shrugs, looks down at the pictures.

They don’t care about the house, they care about Giselle and Sebastian having a place to sleep that’s near them, that their dragons will have a place that is theirs and that is safe.

  


******************************************************************************

  
He doesn’t know when Tom calls Mike, or if he even does. He could have just sent the message through Sebastian for all they know.

“Mike’s coming up,” Tom says, he’s leaning against the counter in the kitchen sniffing a cup of coffee. Jon makes the coffee every morning, only the first pot though, if you want special made by Jon Walker coffee you had better set your alarm.

Spencer leans back in his chair, taps his spoon against the edge of his bowl. Brendon had been in charge of picking out cereal during the weekly excursion for groceries, so they have Chocolate Rice Krispie’s, his milk is a really disgusting shade of brown.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks, Jon is just staring at Tom like he can reach inside Tom’s mind and figure out how he’s _really_ feeling.

Tom shrugs, “I think I’ve put it off long enough, we’re as settled as we’re going to get.”

They’ve been in the house for almost two weeks, Giselle still sleeps with Ryan and Brent, she’s growing every day though and she’s going to be sleeping with Sebastian sooner then Spencer thinks any of them are ready for.

Spencer hopes to distract Ryan with music, when it gets to that point.

Brendon’s helping, giving Ryan stuff he’s working on, things that need words and Ryan seems to be supplying them. They haven’t started fighting yet so Spencer isn’t really sure where they are in the process.

“He’s bringing Bill with him,” Tom says, he frowns at his cup. “I think Pete told him about Sebastian.”

“Is there anyone in our group that _doesn’t_ know,” Jon says.

“It’s Pete,” Spencer pushes his bowl away, Brendon doesn’t get to choose cereal anymore he decides, “we should count ourselves lucky that he didn’t put something up on one of his blogs.”

  


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Mike and William show up bright and early on a Thursday morning. The house has barely started moving around, normally Ryan wouldn’t be up but they’d known that today was Mike’s arrival day. He wanted to be ready to lend support if Tom and Sebastian needed it.

Brent is in the barn with Giselle, they go out in the morning to hang out with Sebastian, so Giselle can start getting used to her space in there. She takes up half their bed now, he and Brent have had to get really comfortable with each other in order to keep her with them. Pretty soon that’s not going to be an option.

“Ryan Ross,” William grins at him when he opens the door; he pulls him into a tight hug and pats him on the back. Mike just rolls his eyes.

Ryan can’t feel him in his head, not like he can Brent or Tom. He wonders if that’s because Mike is still shielding.

“I hear you have a dragon,” William says, he sounds disbelieving, like they’re pulling a prank on him, Ryan almost wants to watch him for his reaction when Sebastian comes out, but he’s more interested in _Mike’s_ to Sebastian and Sebastian’s reaction to _Mike_.

William has an arm over Ryan’s shoulder as Ryan leads them through the house. Everyone is on the back porch waiting for them.

Jon is standing right next to Tom, the look he shoots at Mike promises pain if Mike fucks this up any more then he already has.

Ryan sort of thinks he’s not going to. He doesn’t know why, Mike still isn’t there in his head. But there’s an air of expectation surrounding him and he watches Mike closely for a second, his hands clench and release and he’s pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth, swallowing reflexively. He’s nervous, Ryan thinks.

Scared that Sebastian is going to take one look at him and decide that he was wrong to keep waiting for him to come back.

Brent comes out of the barn and Giselle is following him, wings batting slowly.

He smiles because his girl definitely knows how to make an entrance.

Spencer told him that morning that he had to stop Twittering about her because the Internet thinks he has a girlfriend. But she’s his best girl and no one will let him post pictures so talking about her is the next best thing.

“She’s adorable,” William is saying. “But why do you need so much…”

Ryan can tell the instant that William sees Sebastian’s head peek around the corner.

He’s as nervous as everyone else; Ryan doesn’t think that _anyone_ needed to be nervous. Because Sebastian only has eyes for Mike and Tom, and Mike only has eyes for Sebastian, though his gaze moves to Tom periodically.

Brent comes up on the porch and leans on the railing next to Ryan, Giselle lands on it and makes herself comfortable.

Sebastian takes careful steps across the yard and when he gets close enough he pokes his nose into Tom’s back even as he doesn’t take his eyes off of Mike.

Tom doesn’t either, just rests a hand on Sebastian’s nose when it settles next to him on the railing.

They’re just waiting; Ryan knows they’re waiting for Mike to make the first move.

Because that’s all they’ve been waiting for, for years they’ve waited for Mike to come back and now he’s here and Ryan wonders if he’s _going_ to move.

Mike makes the first move; ignoring William’s gaping, ignoring _all_ of them. He takes five shaky steps across the porch and stops in front of Tom.

They stare at each other and then Tom looks away, looks over at Sebastian and Mike reaches out a hand.

Ryan links his fingers with Brent’s, rests his head on Spencer’s shoulder and watches a rider come home.

  


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End file.
